


Wind Beneath Our Wings

by Shadaras



Series: More Than Our Makers Intended [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Class Differences, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Disabled Character, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Friendship, Found Family, Friendship, M/M, Mentor Leia is very important, Mentor/Protégé, Multi, Pre-OT3, Slow Burn, everything is poly and nothing hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn loves his friends but doesn't have the words for it yet. Rey cares about her friends but is wary of what that might mean. Poe is perfectly aware of everyone's feelings, thank you very much, and doesn't understand why nobody's kissing yet. (BB-8 just wants to get everyone awesome ships to fly around and show off with.)</p><p>A story about what it means to love, what it means to be <i>able</i> to love, and (a little bit) piloting a spaceship as a metaphor for love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Original description:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Alternate title: "anything you can fly, I can fly better"
> 
> Finn's still recovering, Rey and Poe are slowly bonding over being pilots, and BB-8 thinks that humans are very silly sometimes.

Finn starts it.

At least, that’s what Rey and Poe both tell everyone. Finn blames BB-8 in turn, and the droid is perfectly fine with that, it seems. Or doesn’t contest it, at any rate.

A few days after the bittersweet return from Starkiller Base, Rey and Poe are sitting on either side of Finn’s bed in the med center, and BB-8 is chittering away about the battle over Starkiller Base. Poe’s translating what the droid’s saying, since Finn doesn’t understand Astromech (yet, Rey and Poe both agree that he needs to learn, and soon, so that he can understand all of BB-8’s comments about him), when Poe stops partway through a sentence and says, “That is _not_ true.”

“Seriously?” Rey adds, after BB-8 lets out another string of beeps in reply. “You think that was harder than flying the _Falcon_ through that Star Destroyer?”

“Wait, what?” Finn looks between the three of them, ending up on Poe. “What’s not true?”

“My unfaithful bowling ball of an astromech,” Poe says, miming a kick at BB-8, “says that Rey’s stunt with the _Falcon_ on Jakku was cooler than mine with Starkiller Base, but that my flying was trickier.”

“Rey’s flying seemed pretty tricky from where I was sitting,” Finn says, and he’s grinning at BB-8. “But I didn’t get to see Poe’s. Bit busy not dying from a lightsaber about then.” Rey winces, and Finn reaches out to take her hand. “Sorry.”

“BB-8’s saying that Poe flew through that hole we blasted, and then shot everything up,” Rey says, and her hand’s still tight around Finn’s. “Yes, I know, but he doesn’t care about the exact specifications of the weapons used,” she adds to the droid. “I don’t either. You blew it up. That’s what matters.”

Poe grins, comfortable in this at least. “Couldn’t have done it without your ground team.” He squeezes Finn’s shoulder. “That’s why it’s good to have friends.”

Finn smiles back at Poe, though when he brings his hand up to the pilot’s, he winces and stops the motion halfway. “This rehabilitation stuff you do here sure hurts a lot.”

“Better than dying,” Poe says, and Rey nods definitive agreement.

“Yeah, but don’t you have a way to make not dying also not hurt?”

Poe shrugs, but his hand stays on Finn’s shoulder. “We’ve only got so much bacta here, and from what I’ve heard, now that you’re decanted you’ve got as much as you’re gonna get.”

Finn sighs, letting his head fall back against the pillows propping him up. He does hurt a lot less now, even if the sweet scent of bacta hovering around him is weird. People in the med bays on First Order ships and bases were inevitably officers, or troopers who had special training that was expensive to regain. “You treat me so well,” he says, trying to make it a joke.

He misses the look Poe and Rey share. He doesn’t miss the way Rey’s other hand rests on his forehead, cool and delicate. He doesn’t miss the way Poe leans down to kiss his cheek. “You rescued me,” Poe says, and it would’ve been in his ear if he hadn’t turned his head, so instead it’s just an inch in front of his face.

“And you came for me,” Rey says. She hasn’t leaned in. She’s just holding his hand tighter than he’s ever clutched hers before. “That’s... not something people do, for me.”

Poe stays there, smiling, just in front of Finn’s face, and Finn just grins back at him. Poe sits back up, and Finn can see him make a face at BB-8’s whistles. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Poe mutters, clearly to the droid.

“You know, we can resolve this,” Rey says before Finn can ask what BB-8 said. Her hand slips from his head, falls back to her side. “Which of us is better at flying.”

“You sure that’s a fair contest?” Poe asks. “I’ve been trained on most of the ships here.”

Rey’s grin is blinding. “Find one you haven’t flown, then.”

BB-8 chirrups, and Poe laughs. “B-wings? We still have those?”

“I’ve seen one of those,” Rey says thoughtfully. “Never flown one myself, though.”

“Neither have I.” Poe’s fingers tap on Finn’s shoulder, and then he nods decisively. “If BB-8 can find a pair for us, we’ll have this contest.”

Finn sighs, over-dramatic and mournful. “Please have this contest somewhere I can watch. I don’t want to languish away while you have your fun.”

Rey rubs her thumb over his, says, “We’ll set up a datapad with a live feed for you.”

He smiles at her. “Thanks.”

The medical droid who had taken charge of him was bustling in around the corner, and Rey and Poe noticed in the same moment. Finn swallowed his laugh at how they both withdrew their hands at almost the same time, and BB-8 whistled something that didn’t get translated but Finn strongly suspected was either teasing or laughing at the two pilots.

“Good afternoon.” The med-droid makes shooing motions at Rey and Poe, and Finn rolls his eyes. “It is time to change your bandages, Finn.”

“I’ll see you again tomorrow?” he says to his friends.

“You can count on it,” Rey says, and Poe nods silent agreement.

*

Rey follows Poe out of the medical rooms and into the central plaza of the Resistance’s base. He’s heading towards the hanger, and she tags along. “Do you really think we can get a pair of B-wings for this?”

Poe shrugs, and she catches up to him so that he can look at her as he keeps walking. “BB-8’s on a quest now. I think something will turn up.” He grins, and she’s caught off-guard again by how carefree he seems. “Especially since BB-8 likes Finn.”

“We all like him,” Rey says, more brusquely than she intended.

“I’m glad.” There’s so much sincerity in Poe’s voice that Rey almost stops, staring at him. “He needs to learn how to let people care for him.”

Rey doesn’t respond to that, just tucks her thumbs into her belt and eyes him, matching him step-for-step as he walks into the hanger. He doesn’t ignore her presence; she can see how he just waves at the other pilots instead of talking to them. He just also doesn’t let it change his goal or his pace. He doesn’t mind turning his back to her, but she can tell that he’s aware of where she is, and when she finally speaks, upon reaching his X-wing, it doesn’t seem to surprise him.

“Do you like me?”

From how Poe pauses, his hands resting on the rivets and welds holding the cannons on to the S-foils, he hadn’t been expecting that question. His hands start moving again before his mouth does, running slowly and surely across the metal, checking for weakness in a very different way than Rey usually does.

Rey waits. She got good at that, in the desert, where moving too fast could mean injury or death, and she had to plan around the fickle sandstorms and the constant cold nights and burning noons. Waiting for someone to respond was harder, but she’d learnt the hard way that if she spoke out while someone was thinking, she’d often get a worse bargain than if she waited them out.

“Yes,” Poe finally says. He turns from his X-wing and meets her eyes, no fear or pity in them, just compassion and a little sorrow. “I do like you. I’m fairly certain Finn loves you, though.”

“What.” The word escapes Rey’s mouth before she has time to stop it.

“He loves you,” Poe repeats. Then he smiles, and Rey is even more confused. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he loved me, too.”

Rey blinks, then crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Why do you think that?”

“The way he looks at you. The way he looks at me.” Poe shrugs, easy and fluid, as if it’s that simple. “I’m not sure he realises it yet,” he adds, lightly and if he isn’t adding more weights to the already precarious pile of confusion growing around Rey. “I think he needs to stay still a little bit longer before he can realise, but he knows he cares about us -- that rescue mission wasn’t built on nothing, after all.”

“How can that be love?” she asks, and hears a note of confused longing she’d tried to remove from herself long ago, when she first started thinking that maybe the family that left her on Jakku had abandoned her. “He’d known me for so short a time. Known you even less, from what you’ve told me.”

“For some people, falling in love is easy. It happens just like _that_ ,” he says with a snap of his fingers. “And for some it’s a process.” He smiles, runs his hand through his hair, and adds, with a wistful tone Rey can’t quite place, “For some it can go either way.”

She looks at him, then shakes her head and says, perfunctorily. “Thank you for trying to explain.”

“You’re welcome,” he says to her as she leaves, and the sincerity in his voice just unsettles her more.


	2. Chapter 2

Poe doesn’t stay at the hangar long, after Rey leaves. The way she asked him about Finn... he was pretty certain that she had heard the undertones of his own feelings there, even if she didn’t quite understand them. He thunks his head gently on the fuselage of his X-wing and mutters, “I am an idiot.”

By the way nobody comments on that statement, nobody had been close enough to hear. Poe sighs, and turns to one of the side exits. He isn’t going to accomplish anything here, not distracted as he is. Better to find some way to burn off energy, and come back to the X-wing later. Maybe if he wanders around the base, he’ll find someone to distract him. Leia and the other commanders usually had _something_ that needed to be done, at least. And, he thinks to himself, just a little guilty, if Leia isn’t busy, maybe he can talk to her about Rey and Finn, at least a little bit.

The interior rooms taken over as headquarters proper are always just a little humid; Poe’s never been able to figure out if that’s natural or an accommodation for Admiral Ackbar. Either way, it’s kept cool enough that he’s never minded, and right now the damp chill is a pleasant contrast to the warmth outside. The quiet inside surprises him. These rooms are usually filled with the bustle of twenty people with jobs to do and another twenty who were just curious, at the very least. Now, there’s just a handful of comm officers monitoring equipment, and Poe weaves through the softly lit command displays with a smile and wave for each.

By the time he gets to the far wall, it’s clear that if Leia’s here, she doesn’t want to be found. He can’t blame her; her husband coming home only to leave and then die in truth... that’s rough for anyone, especially someone like Leia, who never lets herself crack. Poe sighs, leaning against the wall. It would’ve been so easy for everyone to fall apart in the wake of Starkiller Base. In some ways, the shadows that hung over everyone meant they had. Everything was quieter, and the mutters about what would happen next more frequent.

“Poe?”

He starts at the soft voice, almost loses his balance as he turns to face her. Leia looks worn, the lines of her face etched deeper in the last week. He sketches a salute, the formality instinctual more than necessary. “I wondered if there was anything that needed doing around here, but...” He shrugs, gestures at the quiet rooms. “I guess there isn’t much going on today.”

She studies his face, her eyes growing sharper. “Walk with me?”

He nods, and follows Leia out of the command rooms. The comm officers give her salutes only slightly more formal than Poe’s, and she returns them absently. Once outside, she turns not towards the paths leading out into the fields and forests of D’Qar, but to the more well-kept gardens that helped keep the kitchens stocked with things more interesting than ration packs. Poe keeps pace at her side, not quite sure what she’s thinking, or what she’s expecting from him, or even what she saw.

As they reach the open gardens, Leia says, “What troubles you?”

“Rey,” he admits. He rolls his shoulders, refusing to stay hunched like a child who got in trouble. “Finn too, I guess, but he seems to be adapting better than she is.”

“You grew up in formal war, but she grew up fighting for survival.” Leia pauses to rest her hand upon the slender trunk of a transplanted fruit tree. “Finn understands community. Do you think Rey had that, on Jakku?”

Poe thinks of the villages he visited, tracking down Lor San Tekka. Tight-knit, suspicious of him as a rich outsider, but friendly once he sat down with them for a meal and started telling them stories. “She isn’t from one of the villages, though,” he says. It’s not a question, now that he’s thinking about what BB-8 told him.

Leia’s glimmer of a smile chases shadows from her face. “Your droid can tell you only so much,” she says, continuing through the mixed orchard. “It’s better to ask questions from the source.”

“She’s so skittish.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Poe’s silent, turning that over in his mind. It was unsettling, and he could feel the muscles in his shoulders tightening again, and doubt start to ferment in his stomach. “I don’t know,” he says at last. “I don’t even remember the Rebellion.”

Leia halts and turns to him, looking up with what has to be withheld tears glistening in her eyes. She rests her hands on his wrists, and says, voice gentle, soft, and sad, “Running from the Empire is different from scavenging for every meal.”

Poe looks away first, unable to hold Leia’s gaze. She releases him and continues walking. He stays where he is, listening to the soft wind rustle the orchard’s leaves, trying to stop thinking about how Finn didn’t have a name, and how Rey had to scavenge to survive, and the truth of how little he would ever be able to understand either of them at that fundamental level.

Growing up with Rebellion pilots for parents had been hard. Growing up as a war ended had been scary. But he’d been safe, and secure, and never worried for himself -- just for those he loved around him. Poe sits in the shade of the trees and leans his head back, trying to put himself into either of their shoes.

All he does is continue twisting his gut into knots as the sun slowly passes overhead.

*

Rey isn’t sure where she’s going, when she leaves the hangar. All she can think is that she needs to get _away_ from Poe and all the things he takes for granted. She walks quickly, because if you move with determination people will assume you know where you’re going and won’t try to stop you, and she walks to the edge of the base because she doesn’t want to interact with all these people who take their equipment for granted and assume that they’ll eat well every day.

The planet itself helps with that, she knows, as she steps onto one of the trods heading out into the hills surrounding the base. It’s green, and lush, and even if there isn’t as much water as on Takodana, there’s still plenty. It rained, the second day she was here, and she just stood out in the falling water, trying to understand how everyone just went about business as usual -- how half of them even _complained_ about the hassle of everything getting soaked. It took everything she had to accept that no, she shouldn’t open every container she had and fill them up with this precious resource, because it would always be there.

It’s so easy to walk across the grass, too, and she’s moving more quickly with less effort than on Jakku. Even if she doesn’t know where she’s going, Rey knows she’ll be able to find her way back. There’s a path, and it’s not going to blow away with the breeze, and there are so many landmarks that it almost makes her dizzy trying to keep track of them all. Even simplifying to ‘the hill with three trees on it’ is hard, because she doesn’t know the names of any of the plants here. Not yet, anyway; she’s been studying a guide, but all it does is make her aware of how many planets there are, and how much life is on them, and how sparse the desert of Jakku is in comparison.

She turns left and finds herself following a river. Rey pauses, then takes off her shoes, and wades into the water. It’s cold, and soft on her skin. The pebbly bottom is easy to walk on, and if she needs to move more slowly to be sure of her footing, it’s a familiar slowness, even if the texture is silky water instead of rough sand. The constant exposure to water is slowly lessening her wonder at its presence, but it still feels almost blasphemous to be walking in it.

The river eventually winds its way to a lake, and Rey stops. There’s another person there, and she’s in the lake, and she’s... swimming, Rey supposes. She’s never seen people actually do that before. Slowly, trying to not be seen so that she doesn’t disturb the magic of the scene, Rey makes her way forward to the edge of the lake, and then sits, watching the other woman swim. She’s wearing almost nothing, and she dives under the surface for long enough, sometimes, that Rey’s afraid she’s not going to come up again.

The other woman spots her eventually, and swims back to the shore. Closer, Rey recognises her: she’s one of the X-wing pilots, though not part of Poe’s squadron. When she gets close enough to shore to stand, she stops and wrings water out of her long black hair. “Rey, right?” she asks, and Rey isn’t surprised at all.

“Everyone knows who I am, it seems,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Jessika Pava, of Blue Squadron. Call me Jess.” She steps forward and offers a hand to Rey, who takes it without thinking and shakes it. “You _are_ one of the heroes of the hour.”

Rey shrugs, and pulls her hand back. “Do you come here often?”

“The lake?” Jess glances back at the lake and settles down beside Rey, seeming completely comfortable being almost naked. “Yeah. It reminds me of home.”

The look Rey gave Jess must have been quite something, because Jess laughs a little. “I’m from Naboo,” she says cheerfully. “More of the planet is water than not. We learn to swim before we walk, outside the city -- and sometimes even inside it.”

Rey shakes her head. “I can’t imagine that.”

“I can’t imagine growing up needing to ration water,” Jess says, leaning back to study the sky. “I don’t know how you managed it.”

“With practice.” Rey wraps her arms around her legs, considering Jess, and then says, “You give more water to those who need it -- kids, the sick, elders -- and you hope that you’ll have enough left over to survive until you get more. Moisture evaporators only work so well.”

“Huh.” It’s Jess’ turn to shake her head. “Is it like a dream, being here?”

Rey hesitates. Nobody had asked her that yet, but she thought Leia knew anyway. She’s never talked to Jess before, has no way of knowing why she was being so nice, but hearing the question, and the thought... Rey makes up her mind, and says, “A little.”

“Are you planning on staying?” There are little goosebumps beginning to surface on Jess’ arms, but she’s ignoring them, so Rey does too, focusing instead on how the other woman’s face is lit by the sun, sparkling a little with unevaporated water. “Not everyone does.”

“I don’t know,” Rey admits. “I came here to help find Luke, originally, and now I want to find him even more.”

Jess twists to face her. “Do you think you’ll be able to?”

“R2-D2 woke up. Leia believes he’ll help.” Even if Jess is part of the Resistance, it wouldn’t do to say everything she knows without reason. “I’ll be heading out whenever they finalise the mission. After that...” Rey shrugs. “It depends on how the mission goes, doesn’t it?”

“I hope you’ll see the Resistance as a place to come back to,” Jess says, and she reaches out.

Rey lets the other woman clasp her hand, and smiles.


	3. Chapter 3

Finn’s not bored, exactly; it’s just that there’s nothing in particular to do in the med bay. Dr. Kalonia gave Finn a datapad, almost without thinking about it, and the off-handed courtesy of ‘Let me know if you need anything’ threw him for a loop almost more than his friends coming by at least once a day. But the datapad only tells him so much, and the information on there is static and unchanging: it will be the same every time he reads it, and the First Order taught him to learn information after at most three readings.

There aren’t even really other people in the med bay. Doctors and medical droids come by occasionally, but nobody stays in here for treatment. Except him. “That’s the problem with space battles,” Dr. Kalonia tells him when he asks. “Either people come home or they don’t. It’s ground battles that let people keep walking around after being shot.”

Finn nods, because he understands that. The math of war is simple, and he was taught that as a Stormtrooper, even if it hadn’t been so personally relevant to his life until last week. “So why am I still here?”

“Do you think you can walk yet?” she asks him, and something on his face must have betrayed his confusion at the question. Her expression softens, and she sits in one of the chairs next to his bed. “Rey and Chewie brought you in out of the cold,” she says. “We aren’t in the habit of letting people die, after heroics like that, not if we can help it.”

He nods again, more for something to do than out of any real understanding.

“You’re a person, Finn.” Dr. Kalonia leans forward, and there’s an urgency in her voice that Finn doesn’t quite understand. “I took an oath, when I completed my training, not to let any people die if I could prevent it. You came back from Starkiller Base, and those lightsaber cuts were bad, but we could _help_. Your spine was nicked, and your back muscles sliced through, but the _Falcon_ ’s speed and bacta mean you’re still alive. You may not recover to the full fighting capacity that the First Order would expect of its stormtroopers, but that’s okay. You’re a person, and you’re alive, and I mean to keep you that way with everything in my power.”

Finn frowns, and raises his unwounded arm to scratch at his hair. It’s not quite standard-issue buzz-cut anymore, and he’s not sure what he thinks about that. “Sir, I don’t understand why it matters to you. You’d never met me before.”

“I knew Chewie and Poe.” She leans back and settles her hands on her knee. “They both seemed quite concerned for you.”

“But...” He shakes his head, careful not to move too much and make his back hurt any worse. “I don’t understand. I want to understand, but I don’t.”

“That’s okay,” she says gently. “It’ll come in time.”

There’s a silence, and Finn lowers his arm with a sigh, and tries, slowly, to repeat the motion with his right arm. He stops when it hurts and sets it back down. “Sir-- Doctor-- Is there anything I can do?” he asks, meeting Dr. Kalonia’s eyes. “Help the Resistance, get outside -- anything?”

She tilts her head, obviously thinking, obviously considering him, and Finn keeps himself quiet and still, as he always had to during muster. Whatever the test was, whatever qualities Dr. Kalonia was looking for, she found them, because she nods decisively. “I’ll requisition a chair and put a note in your file that you’d like tasks to do.”

Finn grins, before he remembers that the appropriate reaction is a sober, “Thank you, sir.”

Dr. Kalonia shakes her head as he controls his expression. “I’m glad you’re excited. It’ll take a day for the chair to arrive, and once it does, we’ll need to see how you feel sitting in it. If it causes you more pain, we may be moving too quickly.”

Despite her warning, she’s smiling, and it’s all Finn can do to resist the urge to grab her hand and thank her, over and over, for her kindness. If he didn’t think it would hurt to do, he would have done so anyway, he’s pretty sure. As it is, he just says, “Thank you,” again, and smiles.

She stands, and squeezes his uninjured shoulder, and says, “You’re welcome,” before walking off again, tapping at her datapad as she goes.

Finn watches her go, and feels lighter just for the idea that he might get to move and go somewhere and do something soon.

*

Rey lets Jess talk her into learning the basics of how to swim, because even if she can’t understand how naturally the other woman moves through the water, she definitely wants to learn. Too many planets seem to have endless amounts of water for her to feel comfortable not being able to survive being tossed into it. Jess was patient with her, as Rey slowly unwound her clothes -- she understood that it was better to not get them soaked, but being so exposed to the elements seemed like a terrible idea, even if logically she knew she’d be fine.

The way Jess watched her, on the other hand, Rey didn’t mind at all. People looked at her all the time, and the way Jess looked at her wasn’t unfriendly. She also didn’t flinch from the myriad scars that peppered Rey’s body, tokens of the difficult life of a scavenger, and that was nice; Rey hadn’t expected that, from someone whose planet and life seemed so... kind, in comparison. Jess was a pilot, and that meant that she’s seen her share of death and devastation, but that wasn’t the same as growing up surrounded by the Graveyard of Giants and making a living from the remains of war.

Rey waded into the water, stopping at Jess’ command when it was about waist-deep. Little ripples from the wind lapped at her, and the water itself was cool, and the only thing Rey could think to compare it to was the rare winds that were gentle and warm and had wrapped around her like the memory of her parents’ arms. She doesn’t keep contemplating that for long, though, because Jess moves beside her and says, “Okay. Now try lying down, face-up, on the water and floating. Keeping your arms and legs spread will help.”

“That doesn’t seem anything like what you were doing,” Rey says, but she does as Jess asked. It’s an even stranger sensation than she’d thought; gravity seemed almost irrelevant, as she stared up at the slowly moving clouds, and the way she dipped up and down with her breath was concerning, at first, and then just became a natural rhythm to pay attention to, like the slip of sand down a slope as she walked.

“Learning to float first means that when you’re tired, you know how to rest,” Jess says, and suddenly Rey’s back in the here and now, turning her head to look at her new companion. Friend. The word feels odd in her head; she’s not used to having so many people she could use it for. “Especially since you aren’t used to the water.”

“Thank you,” Rey says, and the words are rusty in her throat.

They stay there, floating and watching the clouds, for longer than Rey expects, before Jess finally says that she needs to go back to the base, and Rey nods agreement. The walk back, following the path Jess obviously knows by heart, is much shorter than the one out -- and feels shorter yet, Rey realises when she looks at the change in the sun’s position, back at base.

“I’ll see you around?” Jess says, turning to face her properly.

Rey smiles. “You did promise to teach me to swim.”

Jess laughs, and the smile stays on Rey’s face as they part.


	4. Chapter 4

The orchard smells like growing things, and it fills Rey’s nose until she can barely think of anything else. Leia’s soft repetitive count _(in... two, three, four, five... hold... two, three... out... two, three, four, five...)_ is the only other thing she can focus on. It holds her as she lets the awareness of life and growth fill her. Insects move beneath her, and she senses them through the soil, and the smallest gust of air hits a hundred leaves and she feels them all move.

It’s overwhelming.

“That’s good, Rey,” Leia murmurs, and her voice reverberates through Rey’s body and mind. “Now, remember your body. Feel your heartbeat, listen to your breath, become aware of your muscles...”

Rey settles into her body again: the sensation of faint dampness on her butt and thighs where they rest upon the ground, the weight of her arms against her legs, the way the tree she leans against presses against her clothes, the way she feels the shifting of her breath, the sound of her heartbeat.

“When you are ready,” Leia says, and now her voice is quiet in the way it’s supposed to be, and the scent of earth is present but not all-encompassing, “open your eyes.”

The silence is nice. Rey stays there, just listening normally now, for a few slow breaths, until she realises she’s lost the count. Then, she opens her eyes, and sees Leia smiling at her. The sun has shifted, and her mentor is now entirely in the sunlight; when they’d sat down, they’d both been in the shade. “Good,” Leia says again, and she reaches out slowly to squeeze Rey’s hand. “What did that feel like for you?”

Rey thinks about it, relishing the way Leia never presses her to answer quickly, and lets her take her time. “It was a lot.”

“That was my thought, when Luke first taught me.” The older woman stands and stretches carefully. “He said that when Yoda taught him on Dagobah -- a swampy planet, I’ll show you holos later -- he almost lost himself in the amount of life.”

“Where were you, when he taught you?” Rey asks. She rolls her shoulders and arches her spine, slowly loosening her joints again. They’re less stiff than she expected them to be, but even with the Force helping somehow, sitting still for so long took a toll.

Leia smiles, looking up into the leaves. “Endor. Its forests were beautiful, and alive, and full of joy that night.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was just after the Rebel Alliance defeated the second Death Star.” Leia’s voice drifts off for a moment. Rey almost says something, about how she doesn’t need to tell this story if she doesn’t want to, and then Leia’s voice firms again and she continues. “We had just mourned the father we’d never known, and celebrated the death of the Emperor. Everyone’s emotions were running high, and the celebrations lasted for days, and after a while... it was a little too much. So Luke took me out into the woods, and he taught me to meditate, like I’m teaching you.”

Rey stands. It always feels a little odd, how she is so much taller than Leia; the general has a presence that makes her seem larger than she really is. “Did it help?”

“A little.” Leia smoothes her vest. “Sharing time together helped at least as much.” She looks at Rey and smiles, just a little, and tilts her head in a way that seemed almost secretive, though Rey isn’t sure why it would be. “Have you noticed that?”

There’s a knot in her chest, now. It just formed there, and Rey doesn’t know why. “I don’t know?” she says, instead of trying to figure that out. “It’s not like I have a brother, like you.”

Leia’s smile deepens, and she begins slowly walking out of the orchard, towards the vegetable gardens. “You have friends.”

“Yes.” Rey follows, working to keep her pace to Leia’s gentle stroll. “That’s not family.”

“It could be.”

Rey scowls at the back of Leia’s head.

“Finn and Poe like you quite a lot.”

This time, Rey is pretty certain that Leia is smiling, and there’s a niggling sensation in the back of her head that Leia may, in fact, be laughing at her.

“Spending time with them may help make things less overwhelming, or at least overwhelming in a more pleasant way.” Leia pauses and glances back at Rey. “Or spend time with other members of the Resistance, and make more friends. There are quite a lot of lovely people here.”

“I talk to people,” Rey mutters, not quite meeting Leia’s gaze.

Leia nods, and keeps walking, and Rey follows, trying to shake the feeling that Leia had just won some contest that she hadn’t even been aware they’d been having.

*

Poe almost trips over himself when he enters the dining hall and sees Finn sitting at one of the prep stations, carefully slicing something. His first thought, which he chastises himself for, is _I didn’t know he’d been allowed out of the med bay!_ His second, and the one that leads him over to his friend, is _Last I’d heard he couldn’t walk, though?_

He’s almost over to Finn when the other man notices him. With the amount of care it’s taking Finn to slice fruit into even slices, and the delicate thinness of the completed ones Poe can see, that’s not surprising. Poe takes the time to look at the hoverchair Finn’s sitting in more closely -- it’s nothing fancy, but he can see it has controls built into the armrests, so Finn can control it on his own. The amount of padding between Finn and the chair is a little silly, Poe thinks, as he sidles around so that when Finn looks up, he’ll be in his field of view. Then he remembers how badly Finn’s back was hurt, and he’s pretty sure that the padding was part of whatever agreement got Finn out here to begin with.

Finn finishes slicing what Poe can now tell is jogan fruit and wipes his knife off on a piece of cloth already stained with orange juices. He sets the knife down, but doesn’t look up, to Poe’s surprise. Instead, he arranges the slices neatly on a plate. Poe laughs a little at that, and it’s the noise that finally gets Finn to look up. There’s a pause, and then he grins. “Want one?” Finn asks, holding out the slice of jogan, the purple skin contrasting nicely with the pale orange inside. “They’re great. I’d never had jogan fruit before coming here.”

Poe takes it, his grin fading to a softer smile as the implications of Finn’s delighted comment sink in. “I’m glad the doctors decided you were ready to get out of there.”

“Yeah, well.” Finn shrugs, then winces. “I like being useful.”

The jogan fruit is sweet on his tongue, and Poe nods. Finn’s earnest tone, and the amount he’s smiling just from doing something so simple as slicing fruit... Poe reaches out with the hand not holding the jogan fruit’s rind, and rests it on Finn’s shoulder. “Well, then it’s good you found a way to help out while you recover.”

Finn’s smile is beautiful, and he raises his right hand, careful to keep the shoulder still. “I’m needing to learn how to use my left hand better. Maybe I’ll be ambidextrous, when this heals up.”

Poe tosses the rind into a nearby trash receptacle, and gently rubs his thumb over Finn’s shoulder. “That would be pretty neat. And then you’d be able to slice fruit twice as fast, right?”

“If someone else keeps them still, maybe.” He looks like he’s actually considering this seriously, and Poe can’t help but love how these simple things matter so much to the other man. “I don’t I’d be able to do it on my own.”

“Then it’s good you wouldn’t be expected to.” Poe pokes at the hoverchair. “You having fun piloting this thing? It’s a bit cumbersome, but you can get some good speed if you try, I bet.”

Finn’s face lights up, and he grabs Poe’s hand with his. “I can move around again. It’s amazing. Will you show me around the base in--” he looks up at the timepiece set into the wall “--an hour, when I’m done here? You gave me a bit of a tour before we went off to Starkiller Base, but I don’t think I really appreciated it then.”

Poe returns the grip, happy with the warmth of Finn’s hand, and the way his callouses catch on his own. “Definitely. I’ll meet you here?”

“That sounds great!” Finn keeps holding his hand, grinning, and then his eyes widen, and the light in them goes out, and he says, “I should get back to work.” He releases Poe’s hand and turns back, without a word.

It takes all Poe’s concentration not to show how much it hurts for Finn to do that, even _knowing_ that in Starkiller Base, he’d likely get punished somehow for not doing his job. So instead Poe squeezes his shoulder, and says, as gently as he can, “Okay. I’ll see you in an hour, Finn. I’m glad you’re enjoying the chair.”

Finn looks up just long enough to smile at him, and Poe returns the smile, carefully putting back together the bits of his heart that break every time he’s reminded of Finn’s history.

As he walks away, to actually get food this time, he shakes his head a little. Despite everything, Finn’s ability to love life and enjoy all the newness of it... it was remarkable, and beautiful, and with each little thing, he’s afraid he’s falling just a little more in love with someone who might not be able to return the feelings, right now. _Patience,_ he knows he’d be counselled. _Patience._

He picks up a plate, and heads towards a basket of rolls, and sighs. “Patience is _hard_ ,” he mutters, and he does his best, as he acquires the rest of his lunch, to not keep stealing glances at Finn, sitting there slicing fruit into neat little sections, all his focus on doing something useful very well.


	5. Chapter 5

“I think the main thing you wouldn’t have seen was the training yards,” Poe’s saying. He’s walking backwards, and Finn’s impressed by how he doesn’t knock into anything. There are pathways through the base, but they aren’t straight hallways or regulated open spaces; they’re chunks of mostly-level ground where plants and rocks have (mostly) been removed, and which have been beaten smooth by many feet finding the best paths between the sunken buildings.

Finn nods, encouraging Poe to continue. His chair purrs as he directs it with the touchscreen on the right arm. When it had shown up that morning, Dr. Kalonia asked him if he had a preference. He’d told her to set it for the right arm for now; his left arm was stronger and more mobile, and if he needed his right hand’s capacity for fine motor skills, he probably wouldn’t be moving. This morning, he had needed to think about where his fingers were and how to use the controls. Now, he only to glances down occasionally to place his hand properly, and he’s pretty sure he’ll have it down to instinct within the next day.

Poe spins around, orienting himself, and then nods at Finn. “So, we’ve got blaster ranges out there -- away from anything we’d be super-sad to have hit by accident.” It takes Finn a moment to realise that he’s joking, and then he smiles right along with Poe. “We’ve also got close-combat arenas. Some of these are inside, but the D’Qar weather was declared ‘Nice enough to practice outside; you don’t melt in rain, after all’ by General Organa, so most of them are outside.”

He’s startled into full-on laughter by Poe’s mimicry of the general. He’s only met her a few times, and never for long. That’s okay with him, though; being friends with superior officers isn’t how things are done. It’s all well and good for Rey to have special training sessions with her, or for Poe to be close to her -- he’s gotten the impression Poe thinks of her as family, sometimes, more than as a commanding officer -- but he’s neither a Jedi nor a long-term member of the Resistance who grew up with the leadership. “Did she really say that?” Finn asks. “It’s so... ” he pauses, searching for the word.

“Disparaging? Unkind? Like we’re whiny children?” Poe says each suggestion with a grin. Finn hesitates, not quite willing to agree. Poe shrugs and glances over his shoulder as he turns a corner. “It was very fair of her,” he informs Finn, turning around fully to walk beside him. “We _were_ complaining. And besides, it’s more cost-effective to have outdoor training grounds when possible; they don’t need to be covered, and it’s a lower start-up cost for the base itself.”

As they round the hill, Finn’s eyes lock on to the two figures standing in the middle of a ragged circle of what look like mostly Resistance pilots by the uniforms. The two in the middle are dressed differently. Finn recognises Rey by her stubborn refusal to discard her arm coverings, or even replace them with nicer materials; it takes him a little longer to place the other person. She’s short, well-dressed, and her hair’s actually falling down her back for once. “General Organa?” he murmurs, surprised.

“I think--”

Whatever Poe thought, Finn’s attention was captured the by _snap-hiss_ of a lightsaber turning on. Rey’s holding it in front of her, and she’s in a very strong, confident stance. Finn can’t tell if she’s actually confident or faking it, but she looks good either way. He and Poe move to join the circle, watching along with everyone else as one of the pilots -- a woman a little shorter than Rey, with skin the color of pale earth and tightly braided black hair -- comes forward and puts a helmet, mask down, on Rey’s head. 

“Ready?” General Organa asks. Her voice is soft, but it carries easily in the clear air and the anticipatory atmosphere.

Rey nods. It’s a little hard to see the movement through the unaccustomed helmet, but it’s there.

General Organa steps back and presses a button on the remote Finn hadn’t known she was holding. In response, a spherical training bot floats up from the ground.

“Remember,” General Organa says, voice impossibly calm. “The blasts will just sting.” She looks at the gathered crowd and shakes her head. “They might hit you, too.”

Finn sinks into his chair a little at how cross she sounds, but everyone else just laughs, a ripple of noise that sounds, and looks, utterly genuine.

She shakes her head at them again, smiling. It seems almost fond. “Rey, it will begin in fifteen seconds. The firing pattern is randomized. Use the Force.” She steps back and then turns, retreating behind a row of seated Resistance members.

“I’ll do my best,” Rey says.

Finn smiles at how determined she sounds. At his side, Poe murmurs, “I never thought I’d see someone using one of those,” and Finn can’t quite place the emotion in his voice. Longing, he guesses, but he’s not sure, and he stops thinking about it very quickly, because the training bot fires.

It doesn’t hit Rey, but that seems more because she’s moving, steps quiet and calm, than anything else. The next shot hits Rey’s leg, and Finn can see her wince. He can’t tell if anyone else does -- he has a lot more practice reading people through helmets, he knows -- but at the soft sound of impact, Finn reaches out and grabs Poe’s hand without thinking about it, or even looking at the pilot. Poe squeezes his hand, and doesn’t say anything.

The _thrum_ of Rey’s lightsaber through the air is the most obvious noise, other than the occasional _hiss_ of the training bot’s movement. The training falls into an uneasy pattern: a few seconds of movement, and then a shot, or maybe two; about half of them miss, and the other half are almost evenly split between shots that hit Rey and shots that hit Rey’s lightsaber. Finn watches Rey, trying to figure out if she’s intentionally blocking them, or if it’s just luck. The Force -- the way Kylo Ren always used it, anyway -- never seemed as subtle as Rey’s fluid movements.

“One more minute,” General Organa says, splitting the silence with her voice.

Rey nods again, and then stops moving entirely. Finn forces himself to keep his mouth closed, but his hand tightens on Poe’s. There’s a moment of quiet, and then the bot moves and fires, right at Rey’s exposed left side.

The bolt flashes out, and it hits Rey’s lightsaber, and bounces back to right where the droid would have been if it hadn’t still been moving. The next bolt, Rey deflects into the ground. Each movement is perfect, her body snapping into the precise pose necessary to defend with the least movement possible. It’s beautiful. Unearthly, and like nothing Finn had seen before, and utterly gorgeous.

Rey blocks three more shots, and none of them hit any bystanders, unlike some of the ones earlier. They all go harmlessly into the air or the ground.

“Enough.” General Organa’s quiet voice resounds through the collectively held breath, and the training bot sinks to the ground with one final _hiss_ , almost a sigh. Rey stays in her final pose, lightsaber held in a center guard in front of her body, for another second, and then turns the lightsaber off with another _snap-hiss_. She straightens, and turns unerringly towards where General Organa is approaching, a wide smile on her face.

“That was _wonderful_ ,” General Organa says, embracing Rey.

Neither of them seem to notice or care that Rey’s still wearing the helmet for a moment, and then Rey straightens and pulls it off. She’s grinning, and her hair is messed up from the loose helmet, and Finn thinks she looks more radiant than he’s ever seen her before -- and maybe even more than any other person he’s ever met. She’s practically glowing with joy. “Thank you,” Rey says, and she’s breathless and Finn can’t figure out why. She sticks the helmet under her left arm and hugs General Organa again with the other. “I did it that time, right? At the end there?”

“Yes,” she says. “You did. All these fine people will be more than happy to tell you about it, I’m sure.”

“Is it just me,” Poe whispers in Finn’s ear, “or was she looking right at us when she said that?”

Finn starts, and then looks at Poe. The amount of amusement on his face helps settle Finn, and he says, “I was thinking that myself. Is that good?”

Poe shrugs, and something passes across his face. “It’s certainly something.”

“What does that mean?” Finn asks, but there’s no time for an answer before Rey -- having apparently given the helmet back to whoever she borrowed it from -- bounds over and stops, grinning, still looking almost giddy, right in front of them.

“That was amazing,” Poe says, and he reaches out to hug Rey. Somewhere in that, he let go of Finn’s hand.

Finn’s almost disappointed, but it is a little hard to hug when holding hands. Instead, he reaches out with his now-free hand to grasp Rey’s. “I’d give you a hug too, if I could.”

She releases Poe and steps closer to him. “You’re here, though!” She laughs, and leans over him to carefully hug his shoulders. He returns the hug as best he can, though the angle’s awkward. “I’d heard you’d gotten a chair, but I hadn’t seen it yet. That’s great!”

“Yeah, and what you did was great too.”

Rey nods against his head and then straightens. “Leia says that I’ve still got a long way to go before she’d trust me in battle with it.”

“Leia,” Poe says somberly, “is a wonderful person and an amazing general, and has a wonderful habit of understating the truth with people she likes. Something about ‘everyone takes stupid risks anyway, why should I encourage them?’”

Rey giggles at Poe’s impersonation of General Organa’s voice and tone. “So I did well, you think?”

“I think you did incredibly, but I’m not the one who’s seen Jedi fight.” Poe runs a hand through his hair and shrugs a little. “Leia would know better. Commander Antilles, if he were here, would know better. Lando, maybe, if he ever shows up from whatever his latest project is...” he trails off and shrugs again. “Sorry, you don’t know any of these names, do you?”

Finn says, quietly, “They were part of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, weren’t they?”

“Yeah.” Poe steps between them and slings an arm over each their shoulders. “Look, I can tell you stories all day, but it’d be easier if we were somewhere everyone can sit down.” He glances around. “And where everyone can start joining in for storytime,” he adds, just a little louder.

Finn isn’t quite sure how, but they end up at the beginning of what feels like a parade to the outdoor part of the dining hall, and he and Rey are sat in the center, toasted as heroes, and then promptly told stories about the Rebellion, the rise of the New Republic, and whatever else comes to mind.

Most of ‘whatever else’ ends up being stories about ridiculous stunts Poe has pulled. Finn spends equal amounts of time laughing, cringing, and looking at his friend admiringly. Beside him, Rey seems to be doing about the same thing, if at slightly different parts of the stories. Poe, who’s sitting in front of them, spends most of those stories groaning into his arms and saying, “It did _not_ happen like that” to the cheers and snide comments of other Resistance members.

It feels, Finn thinks but doesn’t want to say, like what happens when a new unit of Stormtroopers transfers onto a ship. Camaraderie and swapping stories until everyone is known, and you can trust these people, and it starts feeling a lot like a family. Finn smiles, and says, over the general babble, “So, if you want to hear stories, I’ve got some I can share too.”

And so, to cheers of encouragement, Finn starts telling the story of The Day Captain Phasma Was Late To Work And Kylo Ren Almost Ruined Everything.

Everyone laughs in all the right places, and Poe’s eyes are glued to his face the entire time, and Rey mutters disbelieving comments right by his ear, and Finn’s grinning and, for the first time, the Resistance base feels like a place he could call home.


	6. Chapter 6

Dawn in the desert is in the sky, right up until it isn’t anymore and the sun starts warming the desert up, each grain of sand glittering in the endless low sunlight blocked only by rolling dunes and the crashed spaceships of the Graveyard of Giants. Dawn on D’Qar is in the clouds, and the subtleties of colors in the plants and everything else shifting from gray to pastel and then -- without any good metric -- being true rich colors again.

Rey really doesn’t know what to make of it, beyond that it’s beautiful, and different, and she keeps waking up early enough to come watch it.

Only some of that is the nightmares, too; dreams of black gloves and red plasma and screaming in the confines of snow and steel. They aren’t coherent enough for her to really care, but they do keep waking her up in the middle of the night. Rey sighs, and deliberately loosens her grip on her knees. She isn’t cold; nights on D’Qar are nothing compared to desert nights, and the Resistance gave her generic, but warm, clothing from their stores. It’s just unsettling, having the same sort of dream, over and over again.

Today the sky’s covered with clouds. Rey glances at the weather forecast that’s on her datapad; she isn’t sure whether she can trust it yet, but she wants to start learning what the sky looks like, with each prediction it makes. There’s no better way to get caught off-guard than to not know the way the sky looks when a storm’s coming, and rain looks so different here than in the desert. Today is said to be mostly clear, just some clouds, and no chance of rain. Rey looks doubtfully at the clouds glowing pink in the faded blue sky and shrugs. Time would tell.

Behind her, Rey hears footsteps and the whir of a motor. She turns a little, so that she can just barely see who’s climbing up the hill to join her. The jacket registers first, and then the face, and then the orange-and-white droid beside Poe. “Good morning,” she says, turning back to the sunrise.

If Poe realises what it means that she turned her back on him, he doesn’t say anything to show it. He crouches next to her, and says, voice soft, “I used to watch the dawn every day.”

“Then what happened?” Rey asks, watching him out of the corners of her eyes.

He shrugs. “I got busy with being a pilot. Flying to a new planet every week or two, and sometimes spending a couple of weeks on a capital ship instead, really messes with your body’s sleep cycle.”

BB-8 beeps impatiently, and Rey parses the chirps into questioning if Poe (first-pilot is an adorable callsign for him) is going to tell helping-pilot (Rey still doesn’t quite know what to make of her callsign) about--

“You found B-wings?” Rey says, turning to look at the little droid.

BB-8 chirrups happily and approximates a nod.

“The entire base has heard of this challenge now, too.” Poe rubs at the back of his neck, smiling awkwardly. “I hadn’t meant for it to be such a thing, but, well...”

“Jess said they wanted to make a betting pool.” Rey laughs at the shock on Poe’s face. “I _do_ talk to people other than you and Finn,” she says, not bothering to hide her irritation. “Just because he and I saved each other’s lives, and you and he have done the same, doesn’t mean that we need to stick together into one inseparable ball of friendship.”

Poe blushes at that. It’s surprisingly charming. “Well, yeah...”

“You don’t see everything I do. I don’t see everything you do.” Rey shrugs, maintaining the eye contact Poe seemed to be attempting to avoid. “I’m glad Finn’s talking to more people than me, you, and the doctors now. Now he has a chance to do stuff that we don’t know about, and then tell us about it if he wants. Or not, if he doesn’t.”

Watching Poe flush is more entertaining than Rey expected. BB-8 warbled commentary, which Rey summed up as “She’s right, you know.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” Poe says, and he even meets her eyes when he says it. His eyes are a warm dark brown, and earnest in his still-red face. “Everything so new to you, that I just--”

“Thought we didn’t know how to make friends?” Rey raises her eyebrows.

Poe looks down again. “...well, the First Order... and BB-8 told me you were alone on Jakku...”

Rey reaches over and hits him lightly on the top of his head.

“Hey!”

She shakes her head at him, exasperated. “You never _asked_ either of us about our lives before, did you?”

“Well. Um.” He sits down properly, cross-legged on the damp grass. “No. I didn’t.”

“So how in all the blazes _would_ you know?”

He looks down again, fiddling with stalks of grass. “I assumed.”

“Stop it, okay?” Rey taps him on the knee, and he looks up at her, startled, and just a little wary. “The more assumptions you make, the more obnoxious it’s going to be whenever we ruin the pretty fantasies you’ve apparently been making in your head.”

Poe winces, and BB-8 bleeps again, something that amounts to “I like her”, and Poe raises his middle finger absently in the droid’s direction.

Rey giggles at the absurdity, and also at the put-upon fake betrayal on Poe’s face.

He rubs his face with both his hands, then runs his hands through his hair. “Okay.” He looks up at her. “Okay. I have been an ass, and you are clearly better at people than I am, despite having grown up on a desert planet with tiny villages, and I would like to apologise for making shitty assumptions about you and Finn.”

Rey sits silently, suppressing a smile as she waits for Poe to get it.

It takes him a surprising amount of time, as his face runs through a delightful variety of expressions, from confused to worried to “Please help me” (directed at BB-8, who just chirped a simple “No” back) and finally settling on dawning realisation. Poe clears his throat, straightens, and then says, “I am sorry for assuming that you aren’t a competent human being, and that you don’t interact with anyone but me and Finn socially, and that your interactions with Leia are purely about the Force, and that you don’t do anything else in your clearly copious free time. I’m wrong, and I’m surprised you didn’t mention it sooner, since it clearly bothered you. I will do my best to try not to make stupid assumptions again, and if I get it wrong, you are welcome to hit me again.”

“Apology accepted,” Rey says formally, and then, more cheerfully, she adds, “Remember to apologise to Finn, too, when you get a chance.”

Poe groans theatrically, and Rey laughs. He smiles at her, and reaches out a hand, open-palmed. “Thank you.”

She grasps his hand, and shakes it, and says, “Thank _you_.”

He tugs on her hand, and she pulls back, and they end up pulling each other to their feet. They’re both grinning by the time they’re upright, and Poe says, “I was going to tell Finn about the B-wings after he finishes his breakfast shift. Want to get something to eat, and then tell him about them together?”

Rey keeps hold of his hand for a moment longer, then releases it and nods. “Jess might come by, depending on when she wakes up.” While talking, she bends back down to grab her datapad and stick it in one of the nice large pockets of the Resistance’s standard uniform. “That’s what she said yesterday, at least.”

Poe starts walking down the hill, and she’s barely a step behind him, BB-8 trailing at her feet. “I don’t mind,” he says. “After your lightsaber demonstration, and storytime yesterday, I think some of the other pilots and staff might decide to say hi again.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re awesome.”

Rey studies his face, but his voice and body agree: he means that wholeheartedly. “...okay.”

“Seriously!” He’s gesturing, hands flying as if more movement helps justify his words. “You flew the _Falcon_ , okay, literally all the pilots are jealous of you for that, because that ship’s a legend. And then you’re a _Jedi_ , or will be anyway, and that means you’re going to meet _Luke Skywalker_ , another legend.” His face is lit up, and he reaches out as if he’s going to grab her shoulder, then halts his movement and drops his hands back in front of him, toning his voice down some. “And also you’re pretty and mysterious and everyone’s been asking me about you since it got out that I was hanging out with Finn and also you.”

That last part, Rey can believe. She rolls her eyes. “And they didn’t ask me _why_?”

“Because apparently everyone thought you were aloof.” Poe’s tone snaps Rey’s attention back to his expression. It’s that sort of put-upon thing that usually means he’s exaggerating for effect. “I know better now, obviously. You’re not aloof, you’re just working under different assumptions about how to talk to people than the rest of us.”

“I suppose.”

BB-8 warbled, and Rey made a face at the droid. “Being a hero really shouldn’t make someone less approachable.”

“It makes you a story, not a person.” Poe shrugs. “Have you ever wanted to get to know a story?”

Rey thinks about that all the way to the kitchens, where they wave at Finn before acquiring breakfast -- fruit and porridge for Rey, and a pile of what looks like almost entirely sugar-based products for Poe -- and sitting down at one of the larger round tables at Poe’s insistence. She’s finished slicing the fruit up into tiny chunks and stirring them into the porridge when the first pilot (large, and with the grace of someone who could be dangerous, but is choosing not to be) arrives, sitting down next to Poe, who introduces him as Snap Wexley.

The two of them trade banter back and forth easily, and Rey quietly eats her breakfast. She’s halfway done when Poe turns to her and says, “Is the _Falcon_ as much a piece of junk as everyone says it is?”

Rey looks up, startled, and then grins. “Seeing as it was basically sitting in a junkyard for years...”

Snap laughs. “I’m glad you rescued it.”

“It’s still a cobbled-together heap of junk,” she points out. “It’s just a _working_ heap of junk that’s saved all of us, so we’re respectful to her.”

He nods to her, and she sees respect in his eyes. “That’s very true. I wouldn’t insult her if I flew her, either.”

The amount of satisfaction in Poe’s smile leads Rey to elbow him, hard. He yelps, then turns to her and says, “I can be happy that one of my friends likes you!”

“So long as you’re not an asshole about it, sure.”

Snap looks between them and grins. “If I’m interrupting...”

“No, please stay,” Rey says before Poe can utter a word. “I’m proving a point to him, you see.”

“Oh, that sounds like splendid fun.” Snap leans over the table, and says in a stage whisper, “Dameron here has an ego the size of a Star Destroyer, and it’s just as satisfying to blow up.”

Poe groans and leans back over his chair. “I’m devastated,” he says to the ceiling, voice a clearly intentional monotone. “All my friends like each other more than me.”

Rey prods his side. “We still like you, though,” she says, and she means it, more than she’d intended to. “You can tell because we tease you.”

He turns to her and smiles, a more genuine smile than Rey can recall him ever directing at her before. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I’m glad that’s true.”

It’s almost a moment, and then Snap asks Rey a question about how she learned to fly, and Rey doesn’t get through the story before Jess shows up to tug on one of her topknots and demand she start the story over again. Rey laughs, and starts over again, letting Poe interject commentary this time about how ridiculous it is that she’s such a good pilot based on flight sims.

“The Force helps,” she finally says to him, after she’s finished the story and her food.

He makes a face. “Cheating.”

“Luke Skywalker does the same thing.”

The warring emotions of ‘but _cheating_ ’ and ‘he’s my hero!’ made everyone at the table burst out laughing, and Rey tapped him on the shoulder. “I win,” she says, grinning.

He sighs, and bows, though it’s awkward at the table. “I suppose. And your prize?”

Rey looks around the table. “BB-8 found the B-wings,” she says. “My prize is your belief that I’m going to fly better than your star pilot here.”

Jess is the first one to laugh, and say, “Done.”

Snap nods, and that leads the handful of other Resistance members who had joined them to murmur agreement as well.

Poe looks at all of them and sighs dramatically. “I’ll have the last laugh,” he says, mournful, and everyone starts talking again at once.

Rey settles back, content to listen to the banter now, and get swept away when Poe or Jess decided she needed to help them prove a point, and wait for Finn to get done working so he could join them once more.


	7. Chapter 7

There isn’t a handy crashed Star Destroyer to use as an obstacle course, so the remaining pilots of Blue and Red squadrons -- along with their friends in Dagger, Stiletto, Coalstreak, and Cobalt squadrons; some members of the Shrike Task Force; and Finn -- gather in the briefing room. Snap’s got a holo projection of D’Qar slowly rotating over the table, the location of the Resistance Base highlighted. Jess is pacing, muttering to herself, and as more people trickle in, the noise just increases.

Finn stays off to the side. He’s run obstacle courses as part of training, of course, but his have been on the ground. The Shrikes, Snap had told him earlier, are primarily a recon unit whose training also means they’re excellent at commando strikes. Presumably they’re around because they’ve had to deal with weird challenges like this before, and might have some ideas about how to set up a course with relatively few resources.

“I guess the big question is, on D’Qar or in the asteroids?” a Bothan wearing the gray-and-black outfit of the Shrikes finally says.

A Zabrak sighs, and rubs at her horns. “Asteroids would be easier.”

“Asteroids are also more dangerous,” Jess points out. She pokes at the display, zooming in on the planet. “Let’s keep this close to home, so that if something goes wrong, we can react.”

“Can you set up targets, Syrn?” a Duros says to the Bothan.

Syrn’s red-brown fur fluffs. “Of course we can. What sort of targets?”

“Some that are just markers, but some to shoot at, I think.” Snap leans forward. “How many can we have?”

“Of reusable ones?” Syrn snorts. “A couple dozen if you must. Of ones to blow up? Six or so.”

The Duros nods and adjusts the display to show the area within an hour’s flight of the base. “We’re in an area with plenty of forests and rivers to help camouflage our life signs. That also means that we can use the foothills and mountains as terrain obstacles.”

A human woman with skin darker than Finn’s, wearing a unit badge showing crossed blades and a gold A-wing, taps the base, leaving a blue marker there. “Assume we start here. Are we running them in a loop, or not?”

“Depends on the loop...”

Finn tunes out the discussion, pulling up information on his datapad instead. The history of B-wings is straightforward enough, the entry tells him:

_The Rebel Alliance, later called the New Republic, which gave birth to the Resistance, primarily flew four snubfighters: X-wings, the most versatile; A-wings, fast dogfighters; Y-wings, slow bombers; and B-wings, which are designed to assault capital ships, are generally considered the most difficult to fly, and of which the fewest were produced. During the lull between the Galactic Concordance and the rise of the First Order, production on the complex and elite B-wings ceased. Production of X-wings and A-wings slowed, but due to their use in planetary defence and police forces, it never stopped completely. Y-wings continued being built as a specialised unit for military purposes, but production still fell off._

Which explains why the Resistance fields three X-wing squadrons, two A-wing squadrons, and only one Y-wing squadron. It doesn’t fully explain why they didn’t send more of their forces out to Starkiller Base, but that’s already gone. Finn shakes his head a little, and pulls up comparisons of B-wing specs to both X-wings and TIE fighters. If he’s going to be here, he may as well be sure he understands the capabilities of B-wings well enough to provide helpful input.

The most interesting part of B-wings is very clear: the cockpit remains stationary while the rest of the ship can rotate around it. Finn contemplates that for a bit, and then asks, “Is there any way to make them fly through small spaces in this obstacle course?”

“Depends on how much set-up we have to do,” Jess says. “Why?”

“I’m wondering how they’ll do with the gyroscope thing,” Finn admits. “And it looks cool.”

He grins along with the laughter in the room. “If we run them through the forest--” Syrn begins.

“--we can add obstacles without needing to build them ourselves,” the Duros finishes. The unit patch they’re wearing is red with a white Y-wing silhouette on a diagonal black streak. “We just need to pick an appropriate stretch of forest.”

“We’ve said we want them to end over a field, so that we can make them land and celebrate with us,” Jess says. “So if we start by picking that, we can probably design the rest of the course more easily.”

“Pick somewhere close,” the Zabrak says. She’s wearing a unit-patch that’s white, with a single blue X-wing pointed to the top. “Makes it easier for the rest of us.”

Syrn rolls his eyes. “Just because you’re lazy doesn’t mean the rest of us are, Lyr.”

“Just because your idea of a good time is running around the woods doesn’t mean the rest of us need to,” she says back, but they’re both smiling, and Finn guesses they do this a lot.

“I’d like it to be closer,” Finn says quietly. “It’s a bit difficult for me to get places right now.”

Jess looks at him, and sobers a little. “Yeah. How about here?” she asks, tapping a clear spot next to a river, which the display says is about 40 kilometers away. “Close enough to not be a hassle to get to, far enough that they’ll be flying pretty loops for us.”

Slowly, everyone in the room nods or speaks their assent. “Great,” Jess says. “Now, to plan the route itself...”

*

Poe sighs as he looks over the B-wing. It’s a good, solid design, and the mechanics have assured him that it’s in good condition, but... “It’s not right, that you won’t be flying with me,” he says to BB-8.

The little droid warbles at him.

“Yeah, and I’m glad you’ll be keeping Finn company,” Poe says absently. He caresses the side of the snubfighter, where a dozen TIE silhouettes are painted. “It’ll just be weird flying without company.”

BB-8 bumps against his leg and then rolls off presumably to go find Finn and the other pilots. Poe shrugs, and walks over to the other B-wing. Rey’s standing next to it, and one of the A-wing pilots, a dark-skinned woman from Dagger squadron, is talking animatedly with her. He hears the last bit of her words as he approaches: “--remember about the gyroscopes, okay?”

“No fair,” Poe says, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. “I’m not getting any pre-flight advice.”

Rey shakes her head, but she’s smiling. The A-wing pilot -- Tamar, he remembers, that’s her name -- turns to him, the silver eyeliner she’s wearing making her hazel eyes glow. “That’s because we like her more.”

“I’m wounded!”

Tamar rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to flirt.”

Poe halts where he is, feeling a flush grow. “I wasn’t--”

She walks past him, grinning, and pats his shoulder. “Of course not.”

Poe stares after her, not quite able to form words for a moment.

“I like her,” Rey says, and Poe’s brain reboots.

“Get all the scary women together,” he mutters, and then shakes himself and turns to Rey. “I had been coming over here to wish you luck before we begin flying.”

She smiles, and reaches out a hand. “May the best pilot win.”

“I’ll see you at the finish line.” He shakes her hand. It’s warm, and her callouses aren’t in places he’s used to, and the grasp lasts for a second longer than he expects.

Rey nods at him as she lets go, and then climbs up into the cockpit. He turns back to his own B-wing and climbs up to the cockpit.

Once there, he settles himself with a deep breath. He knows how to do this, even if the ship is a little different. It’s going to have a more similar control set-up than that TIE fighter; Alliance ships are Alliance ships, after all. He pulls on his gloves, and puts on his helmet, letting his flight suit wake up and making sure it was whole and in the green. Then, he begins the pre-flight checks. Engines all warm and green, weapons charged and set to the lowest power, S-foil joints all ready to open, comm on and--

“Right, no astromech,” he mutters. He takes another calming breath, then clicks the comm. “Black Leader, everything green.”

“Acknowledged,” Snap says. He’s running the comms for the team that set everything up. “Black Two, status?”

“Black Two here.” Rey’s voice is calm and centered, even through the distortion of Resistance comms, and Poe lets his face stretch into a wide grin. “Everything’s green.”

“You’re cleared for launch.” Snap pauses, then says, “May the Force be with you both.”

Poe engages his repulsorlifts before Snap finishes speaking, and roars out of the hanger into the sky, letting the peace of flight settle over him. This is where he’s meant to be; in the sky, with a challenge and friends around him. He waits for Rey to hover beside him, then clicks his comm, and says, “Here we go.”

He hears her laugh, and her B-wing surges forward.

Poe grins, and guns his engines to catch up. This was going to be _fun_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure literally all of you have been waiting for this: The B-Wing Race  
> Have fun!

The B-wing responds more quickly to Rey’s touch than any other craft she’s piloted. As she arcs towards the first checkpoint, she’s recalibrating everything. How much she needs to press the joystick to change the angle of the craft. The way the body of the ship swings around her with the press of a button. Tamar, Jess, and a Zabrak named Reshe-Pan (“But just call me Pan,” she’d said with a smile of her sharp-toothed mouth) had sat her down to go over the controls before she flew the B-wing, but there was a difference between practice and the reality.

_Calm down_ , she tells herself, fingers flicking over the controls. _You can do this._

The first checkpoint was at the edge of the forest. Rey could see the shimmer of water under the tree branches, and angled towards it. On her HUD, the green dot representing Poe is following just behind her, not quite passing her. Yet. Rey looks ahead on the display, as she nears the yellow mark of the checkpoint on the sensor map, and the blinking blue sensor array hovering a couple meters off the ground. The next checkpoint is a target -- instructions are to follow the river, and shoot down one of the two targets placed on either side of the river before heading to Checkpoint 3, where the next direction will be transmitted.

Rey takes a deep breath, spins the B-wing’s body around until she’s flying with the cockpit just a little over the ground and the body rising above her like a crown, and follows the river.

*

“What’s she _doing_?” Poe asks himself, swinging over the first checkpoint. He’s kept himself on top of his craft, so that the primary airfoil and its laser and ion cannons are barely skimming the water. His snubfigher needs to be an extension of himself, and the sensors beeping at him about proximity alerts are, right now, just telling him that he’s doing a good job. Rey’s skimming the water with not much more clearance than he has, and her airfoil is weaving through the branches like they’re barely there.

He can probably pass her. There’s enough room, barely, if Rey notices him coming up behind her and moves aside. But if she doesn’t, if she takes it as the challenge it is, then she’s going to keep doing exactly what she is -- staying right in the center of the river and refusing to budge and give him safe clearance. Poe swears to himself, and wishes she would at least make it obvious which of the targets she’s going to aim for. If he can plan for one side or the other, he knows he’ll get a clean shot. If he can’t, then it’s going to be a matter of luck. “Force guide me,” he mutters, as the targets come up.

Poe opens his S-foils at almost exactly the same time Rey does, and lets his hand rest easily on the joystick. The lights indicating the targets are up ahead, around just one more bend. Rey’s taking the turn at speed, and Poe follows, watching for a tilt to her craft that’ll let him know which target to hit. “Come on, come on, come _on_ ,” he whispers, and, finally, she leans a little to the right, and he snaps the targeting reticule onto the left-hand target, which he can only see on the screen, not by visuals. It turns green, and the pure tone of a lock rings in the cockpit.

He’s only going to have a second to make the shot, between when Rey clears his vision and he flashes past the target, unless he wants to slow down. Poe grins, and waits. Slowing down would mean losing too much ground, right now. He sees the flash of Rey’s lasers, and sees her turn up and close her S-foils in the same moment, rising through the trees. With a curse, Poe takes the shot, and hears the confirmation that he hit. He closes his S-foils, returning to cruise position, and glances at his display. Rey’s moving faster, now that she’s above the trees.

Poe opens his throttle and gives chase. The next checkpoint is near the hills, where the forest thins out. Maybe he can increase his lead, since he knows more about the reaction time of snubfighers, now that he’s not hemmed in by forest. He flips sideways, and speeds just over the trees, letting the branches rustle in his wake, aiming straight for Checkpoint 3.

*

Rey sees Poe gaining on her, and looks out at the cockpit at the forest below. She can just barely see, aided by the sensors, where the next checkpoint is. It’s doubtful that Poe has that same ability, just above the treeline. Rey matches the rotation on her B-wing to his, though; it’s easier to keep a hunk of metal in the air if the metal’s being at least sort of helpful. The craft may be designed for space battles, as Jess had told her, but they still flew better in atmosphere than TIE fighters did.

If she times it just right, she can use a dive to help her speed, and then pull out and up into whatever the next objective requires. Rey nods, and gently opens the engines until the internal compensators are having a hard time keeping up. She’s not gaining on Poe, not yet, but he’s not increasing the fractional lead he got from keeping to the trees. It’s a straight shot, just a few minutes of flying, and then Rey dives and she can see the exact moment Poe realises what she’s doing, because he jerks to the side to avoid the way she’s diving almost right for him, instincts of a fighter pilot more used to enemies coming from behind than friends.

With a twitch of her wrist, Rey flattens out over the checkpoint marker, and lets her airfoil swing under her cockpit as she makes a hard left to follow the instructions now scrolling over her HUD: _Back over Base for Checkpoint 4, then take a left for Checkpoint 5._

The problem with flying straight, Rey reflects, letting the B-wing continue in a gentle upward arc again, is that it gives you far too much time to watch each other. Poe loops straight up and around, and still doesn’t seem to care about increasing altitude; he’s heading back to Base at almost the same height he’s been all along. Rey smiles. They’ll see how it goes.

*

Finn watches the moving dots on BB-8’s projection. Poe’s marked purple, and Rey’s green, on the mostly-blue holo of the base. The checkpoints are yellow, and turn red as the ships fly past them. “Is Tamar still pacing them?” he asks the pilots around him.

Pan nods. “She’s flying above them. I’m glad she volunteered; even with the compensators, spending that much time upside-down is obnoxious when there’s something to orient to.” The Zabrak stretches, and grins at Finn. “Relax, kid, they’re doing fine. Poe’s just showing off, with that tree-line thing of his.”

“It _is_ pretty cool,” Finn admits, watching the purple B-wing move over the treeline. “I just...”

Jess puts a hand on his shoulder. “He’s got good control and great instincts. Rey’s flying a much safer route, even if it’s a bit longer.”

“Not helping.” But Finn leans into the touch, just a little, and gives Jess an appreciative smile. “I know they’ll be fine, but I’m gonna worry anyway, until they’re safely on the ground again.”

“Kid’s got good instincts,” Pan says.

Snap laughs. “Just like Poe.”

The comparison isn’t something Finn expected, but it’s nice, like a solid weight holding him down, an anchor to help remind him of the home he’s chosen.

*

Five klicks separate Rey from Poe, and almost all of them are up. Poe grins and leans into the turn as they sweep over the Base, heading left to the now-blinking indicator of Checkpoint 5. It’s up in the air, closer to Rey’s height than his, and Poe sighs. “Can’t have everything.” It’s more satisfying to talk to himself when BB-8’s around to tell him what comments are worth listening to, and which really are just him being excited.

Rey’s speeding by him as he starts heading up to join her, and then a sharp alarm rings out through the cockpit and Poe curses. Without thinking, he opens his S-foils and flips on the shield generators, sending his B-wing into a corkscrew spin upwards. “The hell--”

The HUD’s telling him that four A-wings are flying towards them, breaking off into wing-pairs. It IDs them as Stiletto 5-8, and marks them as yellow -- unknown alliance. “Yeah, well, that was a _target lock_ ,” Poe growls at the system, turning the triangles red as he levels off and looks over at Rey, who’s now solidly ahead of him. Her S-foils are still closed, sacrificing weapons for speed and maneuverability. Which. Is probably smart, in this obstacle run. Her shields _are_ up, though, his sensors tell him, and that’s something.

Two A-wings speed past Poe, heading straight towards Rey. Poe wants to watch and see how she reacts to them, but the pair apparently assigned to him have a lock and his system’s beeping at him, so he throws himself into another spin. He can’t win on speed, and he doesn’t want to shoot at his friends even in play, but he’s pretty sure they’re going to judge _something_ about their flying based on this, so...

Best to dodge, and keep moving forward, and hope that Rey knows what she’s doing.

*

If Jess and Tamar hadn’t sat her down and explained about snubfighter warning systems, Rey’s pretty sure she would have crashed the B-wing when the alarm started. Even knowing, she still snarls out curses and raises shields. The alarm drops to a tolerable level, and Rey tries to relax her hands. They aren’t going to shoot her, not really. She knows that. This is a game, and she’s not going to intentionally get hurt in a game.

That doesn’t stop her heart from racing, or her hands from trying to lock up around the joystick. Her eyes dart around the HUD, and Rey continues cursing as she switches power from the forward shield (she doesn’t need that, they’re still behind her) to engines. There’s no point in opening up the S-foils. She’s not shooting at them, or anything else. They aren’t going to shoot at--

Microexplosions sound from behind her, the snubfighter’s way of telling her that lasers have impacted the shield. The HUD’s telling her that they’re weak, and not having any noticeable drain on shield power, but her curses pause for a moment as Rey tells herself that this is part of the game, part of the course, and if that’s how it’s working, then she needs to _not get hit_.

So she looks at the sensor display, and sees that the A-wings are holding steady about 500 meters behind her, and cuts her thrust. She falls, swearing as she keeps the B-wing level, meaning that she’s only dropping at a sort of ridiculous rate, instead of a terrifying rate. The A-wings sweep past her, and she turns the engines back on. She doesn’t quite scrape the trees beneath her, but it’s closer than she likes, and she opens her S-foils. If they’re going to target her, then two can play that game -- she doesn’t need to fire a shot, just show them that she _could_ , really.

Rey pulls up and flips her shields to an even, but weak, distribution. The A-wings are peeling back towards her, one each to port and starboard. She targets the port one, and hisses “ _Yes_ ” at the pure tone of a target lock. She holds it, not firing, for almost a second, and then the A-wing waggles its wings and turns away.

“Good flying, Black Two.”

She doesn’t recognise the voice in her comm, but she clicks acknowledgement and spins up as the other A-wing passes by her. One down. Now to see if she can get the other one, too.

*

One of the A-wings on his sensor display is leaving. It’s not either of the ones behind him, so Poe glances out as he passes by where Rey’s dancing with her pair. He sees her S-foils out but not much else before she’s behind him for the first time in the course. It’s poor consolation for the way his cockpit is constantly ringing with either the soft beeps of attempted target locks or the harsh buzz of a successful one almost all the time, despite his best efforts to avoid the pair of A-wings behind him.

“I could get you if I were in an X-wing,” he informs his cockpit, as he jinks and jukes and generally does his best to be an obnoxious target. “Or if we were in space! Then gravity and wind wouldn’t be such a pain!”

The cockpit does not respond.

Poe glances at the distance indicator on his HUD. Just another five klicks to Checkpoint 5. Once there, he’s pretty sure the A-wings will break off. They’re for this stretch of the course. They’ve got to be. Otherwise this exercise is a little scarier, and he’s not reacting to it the way he was supposed to, and when they land and everyone judges--

The alarm blares again, and Poe swears. “Stay focused,” he tells himself, flipping in a way that doesn’t end up with him upside-down, due to the gyroscopes, but _should_. “That’s later. This challenge is now.”

Less than a minute until he gets to Checkpoint 5. He can avoid target lock for that long.

Right?

*

Rey pulls a tight loop, ignoring the way her cheeks pull back and she’s pressed into her chair. She comes out and keeps turning, following the A-wing for _just_ long enough that she hears the sweet tone of a clean target. She twitches the joystick, and despite the A-wing’s twists and flips, it stays for the crucial seconds. The A-wing waggles its wings at her and breaks off.

“Targets cleared, Black Two. Good job!”

She hisses, “Yes!” and closes her S-foils. All the power that had been going to shields, she turns back to engines, and she can feel the jolt as the compensators take a moment to catch up to the renewed speed.

Rey can see Poe up ahead. He’s almost to the checkpoint, but the A-wings are still on his tail. She laughs a little, watching him dance as she comes up behind him. The A-wings are beautiful little craft, and they’re alternating between who’s trying to keep their lasers on him, she’s pretty sure. She could hit either of them easily from her, but that’s not part of the game. Those A-wings are Poe’s to deal with, not hers.

She’s closing the distance; not quickly, but steadily. Even so, she’s still a few klicks out when Poe rounds the checkpoint and the A-wings peel off, making a lovely loop and heading back the way they came, towards base. Poe closes his S-foils and turns, and Rey resists the urge to follow him. She’ll get to the checkpoint soon enough, and get the next set of instructions. It’ll be fine, even if he _is_ ahead of her now.

When she hits Checkpoint 5, she’s just given a set of coordinates with no further instruction. Her navicomp automatically translates them into a target, and Rey makes a quick turn, flying up and around until she’s facing the new target. It’s labeled, according to the data she was given, “Finish Line.”

*

Finn alternates between watching the holo-projection and looking for Poe and Rey’s B-wings in the sky. “Come on, come _on_ ,” he whispers. He knows they’re close, that’s obvious from the holo.

The pilots and Shrike members who are also gathered in the field are doing pretty much the same thing, so Finn doesn’t even feel bad. Their commentary on the ways Rey and Poe approached the ambush scenario had kept him on edge throughout that section, and Finn is just glad that it’s settled back into a straight race, and that it’d then be over and they’d get to celebrate.

Some of the pilots were calculating scores for the ambush section based on what Finn suspects is a fairly arbitrary and biased point system, and their conversations drifts over to where he’s waiting. Something about the merits of escaping versus fighting, and contextual scenarios. If the Resistance is anything like the First Order, Finn’s sure he’ll hear it deconstructed at least five times by the end of the day; he doesn’t need to listen now.

“There!” Snap says, pointing to the sky.

Finn squints, but can’t see anything. “What--” he starts saying, and Snap passes his binoculars over. Finn raises them up, and lets the older man help guide him until he can see the B-wings racing in. Poe’s in front, Finn knows from the data, but he’d have no way of telling from the fighters alone. They’re close, as distances in the sky go, and he tracks their movement until they grow big enough that he hears other people talking without aid. “Thanks,” he says to Snap.

“No problem,” Snap says, and takes his binoculars back. “You’re at least as excited as any of us.”

Finn blushes, though he’s not quite sure why, and keeps watching as the two ships blaze closer. He can hear them now, a roar of engines pushed to their limits, and his heart’s pounding and he leans forward, as if it’ll help him catch every moment of this.

The two fighters are close, now, and Finn has no idea how Rey caught up, but she’s clearly not trailing by very much anymore, especially as the forward B-wing starts slowing and descending towards the target marked far enough away from the gathered pilots to be safe. The other one keeps going, dropping height but not speed, and spins over the first one.

A cheer rises from the assembled pilots at the maneuver, and at the way both B-wings flatten out and start slowing. Finn can just see the glow of repulsorlifts as Rey and Poe engage their landing systems. They’re both dropping, and they’re doing it faster than Finn thinks is safe. From the pilots’ murmurs, it’s definitely faster than standard, though when they’re both almost at the ground (relatively, he’s pretty sure it’s around a hundred meters), they both slow to a more normal pace.

The two B-wings land within seconds of each other, and the explosion of noise from the pilots cascades over Finn. He’s laughing, delighted, and joins the rush of movement towards the fighters, not wanting to miss a second of the conclusion.

*

Poe opens his cockpit and removes his helmet in the same motion. He stands up and looks over to Rey’s B-wing, where she’s doing the same thing. The waiting crowd is coming towards them, but he’s only got eyes for her. “Nice work, Black Two,” he calls across the distance.

She turns, and looks at him, and grins so brilliantly she outshines the sun. “Good game, Black Leader.”

The A-wings are coming in to land nearby, and Poe and Rey descend to meet the rush of congratulations everyone has to offer. Poe returns all the hugs his pilots offer, and works his way to Finn without as much trouble as he’d expected. He even manages to come in from behind, and shout, “Hey, buddy!”

When Finn turns, a massive smile on his face, Poe leans in and hugs him, pressing a kiss to his cheek in sheer exultation. “How was the show?” he asks.

Finn laughs, holding him as tight as he can with his injured shoulder. “That was _awesome_.”

Poe smiles, though it’s hidden in Finn’s shoulder at the moment, and allows himself to enjoy the simple pleasure of being held by someone he can no longer avoid admitting he loves.


	9. Chapter 9

As soon as Rey steps on the ground, she’s surrounded by Jess and her friends. Jess wraps her up in a hug, and Rey’s too startled to object at first. “That was great!” Jess says, and the other pilots -- a mix of sentient species, though more humans than non -- nod or speak agreement. 

Rey gently pulls Jess’ arms away from her. “Thanks,” she says, pressing back against the B-wing. “It was-- fun.”

Jess steps back, and shoves at a Gand who’s standing next to her, bumping them into another human. “Relax, we can give you some space,” she says. “Just ask.”

“Right.” Rey eyes the bubble of open space that’s appeared in front of her, and takes a breath, calming herself. “We tied?”

The Gand speaks with chittery, almost musical, clicking noises, though a metallic voice cuts in under it quickly. “Hvir Vlee believes that Poe Dameron and Rey--” there’s a pause, and then Hvir Vlee clicks and nods fiercely “--Jedi landed at effectively the same time.”

Rey crosses her arms and looks at Hvir Vlee. The Gand’s insectoid face is half-covered with a breath mask, and it wouldn’t show any expressions she knows how to interpret anyway. “It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there,” she points out. Asking about why they called her Rey Jedi will need to wait.

“Yes, Rey Jedi, there is.” Hvir Vlee looks over at Jess. “Vlee doesn’t believe Vlee is the best equipped to explain.”

Jess pats their arm and steps closer to Rey. “Technically, he beat you here.”

“But...”

She grins. “He wouldn’t have survived the A-wings if they’d been trying to shoot him down.”

Rey rolls her eyes and starts walking into the mass of pilots. “Does that mean I also win?”

“Yup.” Jess trots next to her. “I don’t know if anyone’s told him that yet.”

“Can I tell him?” Rey reaches out and tugs on the shoulder of Jess’ jumpsuit, grinning at her.

Jess -- telegraphing the movement, for which Rey is grateful -- slings an arm over Rey’s shoulder with a laugh. “If nobody else has, I’ll gladly give you that honor.”

The press of Jess’ body against hers is nice. Rey nods, and lets Jess steer her towards the almost-emptiness of heads that apparently indicates where Finn and Poe are. Because of course they’re in the same place; if Finn wasn’t in the huddle greeting her, where else would he be? Rey doesn’t mind too much; he’s had less time to make other friends than she has, though she’s hoping that he’ll find other people soon.

Pilots and mechanics and people Jess tells her are part of the Shrike commando group all offer her congratulations and high-fives as she passes. Rey does her best to accept these -- being in the center of everyone’s attention is unsettling. Jess is a solid presence at her side, and her easy manner helps, but it’s still all Rey can do to nod and try and smile back at all the people who she’s maybe met once, in passing, but who all know her name and have probably heard stories about her.

“It’s almost enough to make me miss being nobody,” she mutters.

Jess hugs her a little, awkward as the movement is. “If you don’t want to stay--”

“Will they settle down?”

“Uh. Maybe?” Jess shrugs. “Depends on what you mean?”

Rey sighs, and doesn’t pursue the question; she can see Poe and Finn now. Someone’s gotten Poe something to sit on (she’s pretty sure it’s a cooler), and he’s sitting next to Finn in his chair. They’re holding hands, and smiling, and it’s obvious enough from how nobody else is bothering to try and talk to them that they’ve only got eyes for each other.

There’s an ache in Rey’s chest as she walks up to them, still with Jess at her side. She’s not sure what it’s from; she’s glad that Finn and Poe like each other so much, and she wasn’t injured while flying. Something to consider later. It isn’t interfering with her ability to function, at present. “Nice flying,” she says to Poe.

The two men turn towards her with identical expressions of surprise. There’s something else in Finn’s eyes, for a moment, as he looks between her and Jess, but Rey can’t quite place it -- it’s almost like an echo of the pain in her chest, she thinks, but what does that even mean?

Poe looks more amused. “Did you have fun playing with those A-wings?”

“They were quite nice.” Rey stops walking next to Finn, and rests her hand on the armrest of his chair. Almost immediately, his hand is next to hers, not quite holding on, but touching. “They complimented my flying as they ran away.”

Jess stifles a laugh, but Finn laughs easily and says, “Dagger and Stiletto squadrons were having a lot of fun with how the X-wing jock got shown up by a rookie.”

“Hey!” Poe straightens up, looking around them. “I did not get shown up!”

“I’ve been told I won because you would’ve been shot down if this had been real,” Rey says, grinning.

Poe’s expression moves between surprise, outrage, and delight in two seconds. He stands, and executes a sweeping bow. “Congratulations on your flying.”

“We’ve also decided,” Jess says as Poe sits down and Finn grabs his hand again, “that you also won, as you _did _get here first.”__

__“...because I didn’t stop to pretend to shoot down A-wings,” Poe finishes for her. He nods. “What are our prizes?”_ _

__“A sense of accomplishment?”_ _

__Finn finally laces his fingers into Rey’s. “I thought you said you had Corellian brandy for them,” he says, looking up at Jess._ _

__Rey looks over at Jess, who grins, and leans into Rey, whispering like she’s telling her a secret. “We maybe don’t want to give it all away...”_ _

__“I know how to share,” Poe says immediately._ _

__Rey starts laughing, and letting Jess and Finn’s chair support more of her weight as she bends over in her cackling. Eventually, she manages to say, “Booze is the only prize?”_ _

__“Well,” Jess says thoughtfully. “I’m sure we can think of something else if we _really_ try...” Her fingers curl around Rey’s shoulder, and she gently pulls Rey closer. “What sort of thing were you thinking about?”_ _

__“I’m not sure,” Rey admits, as her laughter fades and she straightens again. “But booze isn’t my favourite thing.”_ _

__Poe brightens. “So I get all of the winner’s share?”_ _

__“No.” She shakes her head, a mock frown on her face. “I’ll just keep it and trade it for something better.”_ _

__“Cruel,” Poe tells her, very seriously. “That’s not what brandy is for.”_ _

__Finn says, very quietly, “I don’t think I’ve ever had any.”_ _

__“You don’t need to,” Rey says, at the same time as Poe says, “We can fix that.”_ _

__They look at each other, and Rey sighs. “Have you ever had _any_ booze?”_ _

__“A little,” Finn says. He’s running a finger slowly up and down her thumb. “When Starkiller Base was completed, we all got a bit of something in celebration. I don’t remember what it was, though, other than alcoholic.”_ _

__Rey shrugs. “That’s a better way to have booze.”_ _

__Poe’s looking at her, and Rey doesn’t want to figure out what he’s thinking, though she’s pretty sure she could if she tried. Jess lets her arm slide off her shoulders, and Rey, grateful, turns to her instead._ _

__“Whenever you settle this debate, the booze -- and there’s crap beer and whatever shit Jackie’s fermented, too, not just the brandy -- will be waiting over there.” Jess nods her head at where the transports Rey assumes everyone else took out here are sitting. “I’m going to go steal food before it all disappears. Come get crowned soon, okay?”_ _

__“Okay,” Rey says, and reaches to squeeze Jess’ hand before the pilot disappears into the crowd. Jess gives her a smile and returns the pressure before walking away._ _

__Poe says, “They brought food, too?”_ _

__“Fruit and bread and cheese,” Finn says. When Rey and Poe both turn to him, he says, “What? I helped load everything up from the kitchens.”_ _

__“Then it’s settled,” Poe says, and Rey’s pretty sure his words are meant for her, even though he’s looking at Finn. “You’re going to try some brandy, and then eat something, just in case it goes to your head.”_ _

__Rey sighs. “Please tell me they brought water too.”_ _

__“They did,” Finn confirms, and he lets go of both their hands to start working his chair’s controls and gesture at them. “Come on, I can show you where it is.”_ _

__They follow, falling in behind in his wake. Finn seems to know exactly where he’s going, and the crowd parts easily for him, especially as he calls out cheerful “Excuse me!”s any time someone doesn’t seem to notice him behind them._ _

__“I won’t force you to have some,” Poe says, very quietly. Rey’s pretty sure even Finn can’t hear. “And I’ll help keep everyone else from making you drink, if you really don’t want to.”_ _

__“I can handle myself,” Rey hisses._ _

__Poe raises his hands. “I know. But with this many people? Sometimes it’s easier if you know someone’s going to back you with whatever you’re saying.”_ _

__Rey pauses, and looks at him, and his eyes are honest and his hands are calm. She nods._ _

__“Whatever your decision,” Poe repeats, and his hands lower back to his side, and he’s smiling, a soft thing, “I’m your wing.”_ _


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone has feeeeeeelings

The brandy tastes like fire and spices Finn doesn’t have any name for, but he swallows it with nothing more than a look of surprise. He sets down the cup and smiles at the onlookers. “What, didn’t think I’d be able to handle that?” he asks.

Syrn, the Shrike’s Bothan lieutenant, shakes his head. “One never knows.” He stands gracefully and picks up a bottle of his own, though it’s not the fancy brandy Poe and Rey were each presented with. “The First Order could have given their troopers a delightful repulsion to alcohol.” His ears twitch. “That would have been exciting.”

“It would have been _sad_ ,” Lyr says. She’s lounging against the transport’s side, two empty bottles keeping her company. Finn’s pretty sure she got a head start on everyone else. “Then you’d never get to experience the delights of booze. _Ever_.” She punctuates her words with a gesture of her current open bottle, and Finn’s a little surprised nothing comes out.

“Shut up, Lyr.” The Mon Calamari next to Lyr reaches down and plucks the bottle away. After a sniff at it, she winces. “If you’re going to get drunk, at least do it on something healthier than moonshine.”

Lyr looks up. “Hama--”

“I’m getting you water.” Hama takes the bottle with her as she leaves.

Finn turns to Poe, who’s got a bottle of beer, but who hasn’t been drinking it much. “Is that _normal_?” he asks, tilting his head towards Lyr.

“For her? Yes.” Poe sighs, and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up further. “Most people don’t drink that much without good reason, though.”

Finn nods, and lets the conversations continue drifting around him. The Resistance members have finally stopped swarming Poe and Rey, and Rey at least looks a lot more comfortable that way. She’s got her bottle of brandy, but it’s still closed, unlike Poe’s -- not that Poe’s drunk any of his, that Finn’s seen, but he’s poured shots for a few people, including Finn. He touches the controls on his chair and heads towards her; she looks like she’s in a pocket of quiet, where even Jess and Tamar and their cohorts have found other things to be doing right now.

The excitement of the race is finally starting to wear off, and his back’s beginning to ache again. Finn ignores it for now; Dr. Kalonia might be annoyed at him later, but when he told her about the race and probable party, all she’d done was shake her head and thank him for warning her that the medical staff might be seeing a sudden surge in hangovers. She also told him that he shouldn’t drink much, because the painkillers she’s giving him for his back don’t tend to mix kindly with it. Right now, he’s more curious about alcohol than he minds the ache, but he’s keeping the warning in mind in case that changes.

Rey’s watching the crowds of people with an expression that Finn thinks is something like confusion, but that doesn’t seem quite right. “Hey,” he says, as he turns to be sitting next to her. She’s found a stool somewhere, so they’re at about the same height. “Are you letting everyone celebrate for you?”

She shrugs. “It’s not my kind of party.”

Finn reaches out and lightly touches her arm. “What _is_ your kind of party?”

Rey looks at him, startled, and Finn almost draws his hand back. But then she sighs and leans against his chair, and he slides his arm behind her instead, letting it hang around her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she says. “Lots of people and a lot of booze, though?” She shakes her head. “It’s definitely not this.”

“It’s so... disorganized,” Finn says. It’s not quite what he means, but he can’t sort it out any further. “The whole Resistance is, I guess, but this is even more so.”

She laughs. “I’ve been sitting here wondering how we’re going to get everything back to base.”

Finn blinks down at her, and Rey twists so that she can see his face. “See,” she says, “if you’re drunk, you shouldn’t be piloting anything. Same idea as if you don’t have enough sleep. You just don’t have the awareness and reflexes for it.”

“Oh.” He glances around at everyone. Most people have drinks, and, unlike Rey, aren’t drinking water. “There aren’t _that_ many vehicles, are there?”

“Five A-wings, two B-wings, and three ground transports?” Rey shakes her head. “It’s mostly the A-wings. Tamar says she’s going to keep an eye on them, but there’s only so much she can do.”

“It takes more than a drink to get drunk though, right?” He picks up and studies his cup, which still has a sheen from the brandy, even if it’s empty now. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be so much.”

“Depends on the booze, depends on the species, depends on the person.” Rey sighs, and her head tilts back to rest against his arm. Her hair’s soft, even messed up from being in the helmet. “It’s better to assume you’re more affected than you think, though.”

Finn says, though he realises after he’s already spoken that it’s maybe not the wisest thing to do, “You’ve got experience with this?”

She winces, the expression clear even in the dimming light of sunset. “Yes.”

He slowly changes the angle of his arm and chair so that he can actually hold her head, and let his fingers run across her hair. “We should plan our own party.”

“Yeah?” Rey smiles at him. “What would it be like?”

“Something without booze,” he says, and then needs to stop, thinking about it more. “And it’d only have people we actually _know_.”

“And if they’re only Poe’s friends, they don’t count.” She’s grinning now. “He’s so surprised by how many people I know. Has he apologised to you yet?”

Finn blinks, and his fingers still for a moment as he tries to figure out what Poe would’ve apologised for. Then-- “Oh! Right.” He shakes his head. “Yeah, he said something about not wanting me to only be talking to him, but I don’t think it’s a problem, now that I’m not stuck in Medical.” He starts stroking Rey’s hair again. “I get to talk to a lot of people now, and it was really nice that he came by so much when I was in Medical. Helped relieve the boredom.”

“Oh.” Rey’s quiet for a while, and Finn lets the pocket of silence stay. There’s enough noise from the rest of the party, and he can hear someone starting to sing a boisterous song, with other voices -- less clear, but all enthusiastic and loud -- joining in as it went along. The air’s cool, without much of a breeze to stir it, and the horizon is beautiful and green. Sometimes he stops and thinks about it, that he’s ended up somewhere so nice to life that he can just be outside without any special clothing and enjoy it. It’s a kind of gift that the Resistance seems to take for granted, or at least never talk about, and it’s a welcome change from Starkiller Base and the Star Destroyers he’d served on.

Rey reaches up and lays a hand on his arm. “Finn?”

“Yeah?” He looks down at her, and he can’t read anything in her expression.

She tightens her fingers a little. “Poe likes you, right?”

“Yes,” he says, and if he can hear the confusion in his voice, so can she.

“And you like him.”

“Of course. We rescued each other. He named me. He’s fun.”

Rey doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Finn just keeps watching her face. There’s a lot of emotions there, but he can’t pinpoint what any of them are. Then, she says, so quietly he can barely hear her over the party, “You also like me.”

“Yes, of course I do.” He leans down, because it’s worth the effort, and worth the way his back hurts, to kiss her forehead. “You’re amazing. You’re one of my first and best friends. I came back for you, and it’s worth the wound on my back, and it’d be worth that and more if I ever need to come help you save yourself again.”

She nods, and closes her eyes, and Finn straightens up, leaning back against the chair. It conforms perfectly to his back, and it knows where the wound is and avoids that, so he can just sit there and not hurt. Or hurt less, at least. It’s wonderful technology.

He keeps stroking Rey’s hair. Her hand stays on his arm, fingers locked tight enough that he’s sure she’s not going to let go any time soon.

*

Poe’s not watching Finn and Rey. Nope. He’s just standing in the press of people and happens to be looking towards them, that’s all. He gulps down another mouthful of beer and wishes, fervently, that he could drink something stronger.

“It’s sweet, isn’t it?”

He shrugs, not looking at Jess. “I guess.”

She laughs, and steps up next to him, poking him in the side with her elbow. “Your crush is visible from space, Dameron.”

He winces, and jerks his gaze away from Finn and Rey. “Yours isn’t much more subtle.” It isn’t a very kind thing to say, he thinks a moment later, and he hunches his shoulders, not meeting Jess’ eyes.

She pats his arm lightly. It’s a kind of forgiveness, and he relaxes marginally. “They don’t seem to notice.”

Poe sighs. “I keep telling myself that I need to give him time to acclimate to being allowed to have feelings,” he admits, and the amount of relief there is in actually _saying_ it surprises him. “It doesn’t make it any easier to bear.”

Jess laughs a little, and he’d be annoyed if he didn’t recognise the tone from _other_ discussions they’d had about crushes. This laugh is the one where she’s resigned to having a crush on someone who’s probably straight, or otherwise unavailable. She shakes her head, and says, “That’s easier than wondering if you even have a shot, though.”

“When they look at each other like that?” He glances back over, but other people are in the way now. Probably for the best; he’s got a good enough memory of how content they’d looked, Rey’s head on Finn’s arm, his hand in her hair. “I try not to think about it too much.”

She snorts. “You’ve got so much less practice with that.”

Poe doesn’t say anything, because it’s true. If he’s been interested in someone, he’s maybe had to _wait_ for them to decide their feelings, but he’s never had the problem of people being automatically unattainable in the way Jess has. It probably helps that he’s more prone to just telling people his feelings than she is. “This is a special case.”

“You say that about half the guys you’re interested in.” The retort has less bite than usual, and Poe’s about to ask her a question when Jess steals the bottle of brandy he’s been carrying around and opens it. “I’m not taking all of it,” she says in response to the question he didn’t ask. “Just a couple swallows.”

“Depending on the swallows...”

She rolls her eyes, and pours a fairly small amount into her thermos. Poe suspects it was empty for precisely this purpose, since she’d had time to plan. “I know how to be moderate. I’ve gotten volunteered to drive one of the transports back, anyway.”

“Ah, sithspit,” Poe groans. He finishes his beer in one long swallow.

Jess closes the bottle of brandy and hands it back to him. “You’re flying the B-wing back.”

“Yes, I know. I’d forgotten that for a little bit.” He turns back to the transport, looking for somewhere to put the now-empty bottle so it can be recycled. “Those fighters are a pain to fly.”

“Even more than A-wings?” She follows him, pacing at his left side.

He snorts. “I grew up with an A-wing, Jess. They’re twitchy, but fun. B-wings?” He shakes his head. “They’re irritable and I don’t know why they weren’t designed with an astromech port; it’d make the swinging S-foils make so much more sense if the pilot didn’t need to do so much work.”

“Might’ve thrown off the weighting too much? There are enough astromech designs for that to be a problem.”

“They had enough design time to figure out a way to deal.” He finds a bin and tosses the bottle at it from two meters away. The clang of it hitting other bottles is entirely too satisfying. “I don’t like flying without backup.”

Jess steps in front of him, and there’s concern in her face. He ignores it, focusing instead on how weird it is, seeing her dressed in civilian clothes when he’s all decked out in his flight suit still. “We were watching.”

“It’s not the same.” He cuts through the crowd towards the B-wings. “Enough things can go wrong in a moment that you can’t replace having a backup right there with you.”

She does him the courtesy of not responding to him, and just trailing him through the crowd. He knows everyone; the Resistance isn’t that large, and the gaps left by the assault on Starkiller Base still loom large. There’s another double handful of his pilots who should be here, celebrating and blowing off steam in this patently ridiculous excuse for a party. It’s more surprising that the dedicated support staff in the kitchens let everyone take so much food and drink than anything else, if he stops and thinks about it; there’s only so much, and this is almost a waste, if he thinks about it as having to do with anything other than morale.

But the morale boost is obvious, from the high spirits and the drinking songs. He thinks he catches the soft strains of a Mon Calamari mourning song, but the scent of alcohol and a rush of young A-wing pilots washes over him before he can be sure. The pilots are all fresh-faced and probably buzzed, from the cups in their hands, and Poe moves through them with a, “Maybe later,” when they try and ask him about what it was like blowing up Starkiller Base.

He had expected more people to be out by the starfighers, but he’s grateful for the pocket of emptiness and the way he can just sit on the grass and lean against his B-wing’s landing gear. Jess settles next to him, and says, “He looks at you the same way.”

“I know,” Poe says. He drops his head back until he’s staring at the underside of the S-foil. “That’s part of the problem.”

“That he likes you?”

Poe groans and rubs at his face. “That he doesn’t _just_ like me.”

He can practically _hear_ the look Jess gives him. “It’s not like it’d be the first time...”

“But I don’t know how to talk to him about it,” Poe says. He’s whining. He knows he’s whining. He is older than whining and better than whining but he can’t seem to stop. “It’s not like with Zantine and Olpus, where I knew they’d had other intermittent partners. I don’t-- I’m pretty sure he’s never had _any_ partner before.”

“He hasn’t,” Jess agrees. Startled, Poe sits up and fixes his eyes on her. She laughs. “Poe, you are magnificently bad at actually _talking_ to the people you like.”

He blushes. It’s not like that’s news; it’s just that he normally knows the people he crushes on more _before_ he crushes on them. Or knows more people who he can ask about them. “Okay. So he hasn’t had any partner before.”

“And that means you can’t talk to him about that you have a crush on him _why_?”

“Same question right back at you,” he says, more sharply than he intends.

Jess raises an eyebrow. “Really, is that how we’re doing this?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Poe runs his hands through his hair, and he can feel it start standing up. “Because I don’t know if he’s going to get it when I tell him I like him.”

“I don’t know if she likes me,” Jess says. She makes it sound so much more cheerful than Poe would’ve managed with the same statement, but she also takes a sip from her thermos. “You know he likes you, somehow or another. What’ve you got to lose?”

Poe stares at Jess, and then, very slowly, says, “She lets you touch her, and have your arm around her, and you don’t know if she likes you?”

Jess sets the thermos down and flops back into the slightly scorched and rather flattened grass with a groan. “You make a good point.”

“Victory is mine,” Poe says, deadpan. “The great Jess has admitted I have a good point.” 

“Shut up.” Jess waves vaguely at him. He’s pretty sure that if there had been something soft to hand, she’d have thrown it at him. “We’re both a bit oblivious when it comes to people we like.”

Poe looks back at the party, where there’s no chance of seeing either Finn or Rey through the mass of people. “Yeah. We really are.”


	11. Chapter 11

The garden is as peaceful as always. It still smells like rich earth and new life, scents that Rey doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of. Leia’s presence near her is a quiet fire; banked, but ready to burst into life as soon as necessary. Her small size hid nothing of her power, Rey had come to realise over the past weeks. It just meant that people tended to overlook her until they realised who Leia was.

There’s an itch on her leg. Rey does her best to stay still, to avoid thinking about it or scratching it. She’s supposed to be meditating, concentrating on strengthening and quickening her connection to the living Force. The exercise itself is easy, but keeping her focus is hard, especially when she can feel rough tree bark, and there’s an itch on her leg, and she can’t stop thinking about how nice it felt to have Jess’ arm around her, and how comfortable it was to let Finn stroke her hair.

“Enough,” Leia says. Her voice is firm, but it’s gentle. “You’re distracted today.”

Rey opens her eyes and scratches her leg. Leia’s sitting cross-legged, just as she is, and looks like she could maintain her posture forever. Rey shrugs a little. “Yeah.”

“Would you like to talk about this distraction?”

The instinct to look away from Leia’s gaze is almost overpowering. Rey doesn’t. She holds her mentor’s too-knowing eyes, and she can _feel_ the depth of care there. “How much can you tell about why I’m distracted?” Rey asks instead. “Is the Force telling you things, or just... life?”

Leia laughs a little, and it brightens her face in a way Rey gets the impression happens far too rarely now. “It’s both, child. The Force tells me you’re unable to focus, but gossip tells me that you were star of the party yesterday. It’s only common sense to suspect something happened there.”

“Yeah.” Rey does look down, this time, focusing on the earth and looking for the little creatures that crawled through it.

“Nothing unpleasant, I hope?”

Rey snorts. “I suspect if something unpleasant _had_ happened, gossip would’ve told you about it.”

“You can find something unpleasant without anyone knowing.” Leia stands, from the rustle of fabric. Rey can feel her presence in the Force still, and doesn’t flinch away as Leia settles back down next to her, not quite close enough that they’re touching.

“Nothing bad happened,” Rey mutters. She’s picked up a twig and is slowly stripping bark from it. “Just...”

Leia doesn’t say anything. The patient waiting she’s doing feels like it takes an incredible amount of control.

Rey flings the twig away, and turns to face Leia. “Nobody tells me gossip. What’s the gossip about--” her face is heating up “--Poe and Finn and me?”

“Nobody tells me gossip either.” Leia says it with what looks like a straight face, but Rey can see from the twitching at the corners of her mouth and eyes that she’s suppressing a smile. “That’s why I ask.” She places a hand on Rey’s knee. “You and Finn and Poe, eh?”

Rey nods. She doesn’t quite twitch away from Leia’s touch, but it’s a near thing, and she thinks the older woman sees it, since she removes her hand.

“There’s been a betting pool going about how long it’ll take for Poe to admit his crush on Finn ever since Finn came to D’Qar.” Leia shakes her head. “There’s a quiet debate about whether or not Finn reciprocates, or if he’s too busy being devoted to you, going on alongside that.”

“Devoted?” Rey manages. Her throat seems to have dried up.

Leia’s face softens into a smile. “He went to Starkiller Base for _you_ , Rey.”

She shakes her head, looking back at the ground. Her fingers are digging into her arms.

“Jess could tell you more about the base’s gossip,” Leia says quietly. “Especially if this is what you’re curious about. She knows Poe very well, and I know you’re friends with her too.”

Rey nods.

“May the Force be with you, Rey.” Leia stands and moves off, every step purposeful.

Rey stays where she is. Her breathing is calm. Her heart isn’t beating any faster than normal, not really. She can’t seem to bring herself to move, though. She keeps watching the dirt, looking at the little insects going about their business, and waits. That, at least, she knows how to do.

*

The med-bay is usually empty of everyone except med-droids and Dr. Kalonia when Finn comes in for his daily physical therapy session. Or check-up. They’re rolled into one session for everyone’s convenience. Today, when Finn enters at 1015 hours, there are bunches of people sitting on chairs and beds. He stops near the entrance, and waits. Most of the people don’t seem to notice him, even though his chair isn’t exactly subtle; it’s quiet enough, but it’s still more awkward to maneuver than walking, for Finn.

One of the droids comes over and says, “Dr. Kalonia will be with you shortly. Please follow me.”

Finn nods and follows the droid, waving at some of the people he recognises. Lyr’s lying on one of the beds, and the Mon Cal who was taking care of her -- Hama? -- is sitting next to her. Finn hears a bit of what he’s pretty sure is a very quiet scolding as he passes. Snap’s in a cluster of pilots, all of whom are leaning against the wall, looking exhausted. One or two of the pilots wave back at him, but most of them have their eyes closed.

The droid leads him to the back room that he’s been in every day since Starkiller Base. It’s more familiar, still, than the bunk he’s been given -- he’s not sharing with anyone right now, apparently because of both the chair and the losses taken at Starkiller Base -- and he breathes in the lingering scent of bacta that’s come to be a comfort since he arrived. It’s a scent that means _life_. He swings his chair next to the already-raised medical table and says, “Thanks,” to the droid. It nods at him and leaves without another word.

Finn sighs, and disengages the straps keeping him securely in the chair. Transferring from the chair to the medical table hurts. It always does. He tracks his progress in part by how _much_ it hurts his back and his shoulder, and by how much his legs can actually help, instead of hinder, the process. It’s not that he can’t use his legs, exactly; they still work fine. It’s just that if he tries to support himself with them, he can’t feel them quite right, so he falls over. And also it hurts, but the falling over is more of his objection, while the pain is more of Dr. Kalonia’s.

By the time Dr. Kalonia arrives, Finn’s gotten himself arranged on the medical table. “Good morning,” he says cheerfully.

“I’m glad you had the sense not to get yourself drunk,” she says, but she says it with a smile. “I was worried.”

Finn shrugs, but only on his good side. “If I’m going to get drunk, I’m okay with waiting until I’m off painkillers.”

Kalonia nods at him, and opens her datapad. “Did you have fun?”

“I liked watching the race,” he says, lying down at her direction. It makes his back hurt. This table isn’t adjusted to cope with his wound. He doesn’t say anything, though; Kalonia’s already told him that she can’t change the table just for him. “The party was... different.”

“The First Order didn’t let you have parties?”

He shakes his head. “We had celebrations. It’s different.”

“More ceremonial, I’d imagine.” She’s carefully running a medical scanner along his body. “Was this a good kind of different?”

Finn thinks about that for a good while, long enough for Kalonia to help him sit up again and turn so that she can examine his back more closely. “I don’t know,” he finally says. She’s removed his jacket and shirt both (which hurt), and he can feel her fingertips gently brushing his skin around the lightsaber wound (which hurt, but not because of her fingers). “Rey and I talked about it, some.”

Kalonia placed a cool metal tool next to the his wound, and Finn hissed. “Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound very apologetic. “What did she think?”

“She didn’t seem comfortable with it.” Finn keeps his eyes fixed on the holo-aquarium on the wall in front of him. Watching the imaginary fish move helps distract him from whatever Kalonia’s doing. “Some of it was the alcohol. some of it was the number of people.”

“Were either of those problematic to you?” Something cool spreads along Finn’s back, and the pain is reduced.

“That’s nice,” he says, and then adds, “Not really?” to actually answer her question. “It was just... different.” He shakes his head a little. “I wish I knew a better word.”

“You don’t need a better word,” Kalonia says, and then there’s a long pause, accompanied by the tapping of her fingers on her datapad. “The nerve damage should be healed soon.”

“That’s great!” he says, and he almost forgets his injuries enough to twist and grin at her. Her hand on his uninjured shoulder stops him. “Does that mean I can start working on walking again?”

“Not yet.” She squeezes his shoulder and come around in front of him, sitting on a stool. “I will start working more leg exercises into your physical therapy routine, though.”

Finn nods, still grinning. “That’s okay.”

Dr. Kalonia shakes her head. “I’m glad you’re excited.”

“The more I heal, the more I can do,” he points out. “And the more useful I can be to everyone, and the more I can do with Rey and Poe.”

“Hm.” She enters another note in her datapad. “What sort of things do you want to do with them?”

Finn pauses. “Rey’s been telling me about how she’s learning to swim,” he says quietly, “and Poe keeps telling me he wants to teach me how to fly. And I’d like to give them proper hugs again, that’s a lot harder in the chair.”

Kalonia smiles at him. “Those are good goals,” she says, “and I think you’ll find yourself capable of them soon enough. Sooner,” she adds, “if you don’t push yourself so hard you relapse.”

“Yes, Doctor,” he says, but he can’t suppress his smile.

*

Rey sits down next to Jess at lunch and says, abruptly, “General Leia said that if I wanted to know what people were saying about me and Finn and Poe, I should ask you.”

Jess freezes, her fork halfway to her mouth. Then she sets it down and says, “Hello to you too.”

“Sorry.” Rey pokes at the food on her plate, barely glancing up at her friend. “It’s just... I heard there was a betting pool, about Poe and Finn?”

“Oh, that.” Jess gently nudges Rey with her shoulder. “Yeah, I thought everyone knew about that, even you. When Finn got here the first time, when you’d been taken to Starkiller Base? He and Poe saw each other and immediately ran to each other for a giant hug. There’s been a lot of talk about when they’d get together ever since.”

Rey stabs a piece of unidentifiable protein and brings it mechanically to her mouth. She chews, and swallows, and then says, “What about me?”

There’s a long pause, long enough that Rey looks up at Jess. The pilot’s leaning on the table, and there’s something-- Rey takes a breath, and then another, settling into the Force, until she can feel the emotions running through Jess. There are a _lot_ of them, and she can’t sort through them. Instead, she just picks up the general tenor: fondness, and affection, and desire.

Rey blinks at Jess, and says, very quietly, “Do you like me?”

Jess nods.

“Is... is that why Leia told me to ask you?”

The pilot throws her hands into the air. “Who knows why the General does anything?” She wraps her arms around her ribs and says, “I think I owe Poe ten credits, though. He said you’d figure out that I have a crush on you before I told you.”

Rey hunches over and bites her lip. “I-- I kinda used the Force to figure out what you were feeling.”

“Oh.”

Rey goes back to eating. If she’s just ruined a friendship and needs to leave, then she may as well eat as much as she can before she’s told to go away. She can feel Jess watching her, but she can’t figure out why, or what Jess is going to do. It’s unsettling.

“Can I-- can I hug you?” Jess asks, finally.

She didn’t expect that. She nods, though, almost without thinking.

Jess wraps her arms around her, warm and solid and _present_. “I like you as a friend, not just as a potential partner,” she says, almost whispering into Rey’s ear. “I know we’re friends, and if you don’t want to do anything else, that’s okay. If you’re waiting for Finn in the same way Poe is, that’s fine. I can deal. But if you do like me...” She takes a breath, and Rey hears the tremble in her voice. “I’d like if it you would tell me.”

Rey nods, and frees the arm between her and Jess, until she can pull the pilot into a hug of her own. “I don’t know,” she says, voice muffled by Jess’ shoulder. “I never-- there was never any option, before, and now...”

“I can wait,” Jess says. “As long as it takes for you to decide, and whatever you decide, I can wait.”

Rey doesn’t say anything, just holds her friend tighter.


	12. Chapter 12

Finn aches, even with the painkillers and the kindness of his hoverchair, as he returns to his room at the end of the day. It’s not even 2100 hours local time, and all he wants is to lie down and sleep. Dr. Kalonia keeps reassuring him that wanting to sleep is normal and good; it means his body is healing. Same with his increased appetite, even though he’s doing less active work. “Just being awake and moving is work for you right now,” she had told him earlier. “So keep up the good work.”

There’s someone sitting outside his door. Finn stiffens, instinctively reaching for a blaster that isn’t at his side, and making his shoulder smart and his hand bang against the hoverchair that isn’t supposed to be there. The person turns towards him, and Finn tells himself to relax. It’s just Rey. “Hi,” he says, maneuvering closer to her. “What’s the occasion?”

She stands, saying, “I was waiting for you.”

“Yeah, I could see that.” Finn turns to the keypad as Rey stretches, her head tilting back and face relaxing for a moment as her arms reach towards the unseen sky. “Any particular reason for that?”

“I have a question for you,” she says. The door hisses open, and Finn waves Rey through. She steps in, taking care to keep an eye on both him and the newly visible space. “It could wait, I guess, but...”

The hesitation, the way her voice trails off into uncertainty at the end, makes Finn rub at his face. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, entering his room and letting the door close. “Every day is a long day for me right now.”

Rey nods. She isn’t touching any of the walls, or even standing near the empty chairs. Finn gets why she isn’t sitting on his crisply made bed, but the way she’s avoiding any of the surfaces he’s carefully keeping clean is unsettling to him.

“Is this the sort of question I want to be sitting for?” He grins at her, and flicks a hand at the chair. “Or that you want to be sitting for?”

“Oh.” Rey looks at the chair, then back at him, her hands shoved in the pockets of her regulation borrowed clothing. “It’s okay?”

“They’re for sitting,” he says, and moves his chair so that he’s sitting facing the chair by the little desk. “It’ll make me more comfortable if I don’t need to be looking up.”

She nods again and sits, perching on the edge of the chair. Her fingers fidget now with a frayed edge of her arm wraps, the one thing of her original desert clothes she refuses to get rid of. “You know how people work, right?” she asks abruptly, glancing up and meeting his eyes and then looking away again so quickly that Finn almost wonders if he was imagining the look on her face -- vulnerability, something she almost never shows.

“Sometimes,” he says slowly. “These people are different from what I’m used to.”

Rey shakes her head and fist her hands in her lap. “How do you tell when someone likes you?”

Finn laughs, letting his head fall back onto the chair’s headrest. “You don’t ask easy questions, do you?” He can _feel_ the discomfort radiating from Rey, though, and quiets himself. Running through a list of people he knows, it’s surprisingly difficult to think of ones he knows like him. There’s Rey, of course, whose affection is in letting him hold her hand sometimes, in how she kept checking on him, in the questions she asks and the company she keeps.

Poe is the next one he thinks of; the person who gave him his name, and who gave him his jacket and told him to keep it, and even patched it up while he was in the bacta tank. Poe, whose easy smile and huge array of friends make it clear that every minute he’s with Finn, he’s choosing it -- he could always find somewhere else to be, but he picks being with Finn whenever Finn asks, and many times when he doesn’t. Finn’s never quite understood it, but the bonds forged in battle are the strongest; the First Order might not have gotten everything right, but he thinks that Captain Phasma understood something with that.

Back in the First Order... Finn rubs at his shoulder, soothing the stressed muscles with his uninjured arm’s hand. Slip had been... the closest thing he’d had to a friend. But seeing how Poe is around him, and Rey, and even Snap and Jess and the other pilots and ground crew -- even General Leia is easier with a smile and a gentle word of encouragement and praise than any member of his squad in the First Order. It had been the friendship he found there, but the quality of the friends in the Resistance was so different Finn wasn’t sure how to compare the two.

He shakes his head a little and looks back at Rey. She’s silent, and watching him, far stiller than he expected. If she’s moving, she’s doing it so that he can’t see her fidget, like a predator on the hunt. It’s eerie. He drops his hand back onto the arm of his chair and says, “Well, spending time around you, I guess.”

She nods, once.

“Talking to you.” He’s forging into ideas that he’s not really thought about, but the uncertain territory feels right to him. “Smiling, laughing.” He thinks about Lyr and Hama, and adds, “People who want to take care of you and help you generally like you.”

“But there are different kinds of liking.” Rey flicks her hands open and sideways, a gesture he’s learned to read as frustration from her. “There’s the way Leia mentors me, and the way Poe wants to be my friend, and then there’s--” Rey stops abruptly and looks down, hands clenched again, a flush on her freckled cheeks.

Finn doesn’t say anything for a minute. When the flush has receded but Rey hasn’t moved except to breathe, he tentatively moves closer, allowing the hum of his chair to warn her of his approach. Carefully, making sure she can see his hand coming, he rests it on her chair, not quite touching her arm. “Then there’s what?” he asks softly.

Her arm moves, just enough to touch his fingers. “You came back for me. That’s a-- a different kind of liking.”

He slowly turns his hand until his palm rests against the rough cloth of her arm wraps. “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he says. He knows he’s hurting, that he really should lie down and maybe take another painkiller so that he can sleep, but he can’t look away from Rey’s downturned face.

“Do you--” That gesture of frustration again, as if Rey’s trying to toss away her confusion. “You rescued Poe too.”

“Yeah.” Finn really wants Rey to look up. It’s really nice being able to see people’s faces while talking to them. “He saved me back, on Takodana.”

Her muscles tighten under his hand. “Yeah. Is that--” Rey looks up, and her face as rigid as the rest of her. “Is that the same?”

“As rescuing you?”

She nods.

Finn bites his lip. “For me? It’s kind of different. I knew you before I wanted to save you. I only started liking Poe for Poe while I rescued him.”

“But you like him too.”

It’s the same question as she asked him last night, but she’s saying it as if it means something new now. Finn doesn’t reply immediately, instead trying to figure out what the difference is. “I like you and Poe in the same way,” he finally says. “And that’s different from how I like Snap, or Jess, or Syrn.” He shrugs, an awkward and aborted movement as his back and shoulder both complain. “I don’t know how it’s different. It just... is.”

Rey’s silent, but she’s relaxing. Finn meets her eyes as she studies his face, even though he has no idea what she’s looking for. He doesn’t have anything to hide from her, he’s sure. Why would he?

She puts her hand on his arm, her touch just as light as his. “Have you...” she taps her other hand’s fingers on her leg. “Jess says she has a crush on me. Is that... something you’ve ever had?”

Finn tilts his head. “A what?”

“I--” Rey hisses, and her fingers tighten momentarily on his arm. “Romantic attraction. Something more than friendship.” Her free hand flicks out again. “She didn’t explain very clearly. She seems to think it’s something _obvious_.”

“To her, maybe.” Finn grimaces. “Romantic relationships I know about. We weren’t exactly allowed to have them. The squad was the most important thing, except for the mission, and we were supposed to... supposed to leave people behind if that allowed us to complete the mission.”

“Did you ever want one?” Rey asks, and she sounds honestly curious now, her voice much less strained than it’s been.

Finn opens his mouth to automatically say ‘No’, and then catches himself and closes it instead. He doesn’t need to listen to regulations. It’s obvious that on-base relationships are allowed here. The General and Han Solo had one. Lyr and Hama, he’s pretty sure, have one. He’s heard dozens of references to SO’s, and hadn’t even gotten laughed at when he asked what kind of officer that was -- just gotten an explanation of significant others and how it’s a much better term than ‘girlfriend’ when you’ve got cross-species relationships or relationships not following gender binary (another term he’d asked them to define) or have different native languages than Galactic Standard.

_Does_ he want that? He rubs his thumb absently over Rey’s arm. “I think,” he says, careful, watching Rey’s face for her reaction, “that it’s something I’d like.”

There’s a flicker of what Finn thinks is disappointment, and then Rey smiles. “Is it a feeling you can define, though? Wanting that kind of romantic thing?”

He shakes his head. “It’s... a feeling.”

Rey sighs, and looks down at her lap. “I don’t know what that means,” she admits.

“That’s okay.” He puts just a little pressure on her arm. “I hadn’t really thought about it until just now.”

“You have an answer, though.” She shakes her head. “I just have a lot of questions.”

“Have you tried asking Poe?”

Rey looks up, much more surprised than Finn had expected. “No,” she says, and then her eyes focus in on him and she grins. “I hadn’t. You should come with me when I do.”

Unintentionally, Finn tightens his grip on her arm. Her eyes worry him. “Why?”

“I think it’d be interesting.” Her grin spreads a little more. “It’s okay. I’ll ask all the questions. You can just listen.”

“If you’re serious about this, can we do it tomorrow?” Finn nods at his shoulder. “It’s been a long day, as I said.”

“Oh.” Her grin fades, and she leans forward, gently touching his shoulder. “I forget a little, because it doesn’t change anything about how you act.”

Finn smiles, warmth blooming in his chest. “That’s okay. I’d just like to sleep, and let it all rest a little before having what’s probably going to be a long conversation. After breakfast tomorrow, maybe?”

“Yes.” Rey stands up, her knees almost brushing his. He keeps his hand on her arm for a moment, until she releases his arm and draws her hand back from his shoulder. “I’ll see you then.”

“Goodnight,” Finn says as she starts walking away.

She turns at the door and smiles back. “Rest well, Finn.”


	13. Chapter 13

That Finn and Rey are sitting together at breakfast, and very definitely _not_ sitting at any of the tables the pilots always claim, is something that gets Poe on edge the moment he walks into the mess hall. It’s not strange that they’re sitting with each other; that happens all the time. It’s that nobody else is sitting with them, and that he’s pretty certain that’s intentional. Poe shakes his head and heads to the caf machine. It’s too early to figure out what’s going on, especially after staying up until almost 0200 hours looking over the most recent sim data from the new pilot recruits.

The caf is bitter, taken straight, but it burns right down to his stomach and the scent clears his head better than anything else could right now. Poe takes another gulp and shuffles to the side of the machine so that someone else can get to it. Once they’re gone, Poe refills his mug and cradles it to his chest as he makes his way to where real solid food awaits him. Even if it’s reconstituted meal blocks half the time, it’s still real and solid and gives him enough energy to wake up halfway properly.

He fills a plate with something that the person on meal duty cheerfully tells him is “Baked tubers and protein chunks”, which is the most unappetizing way to say “fake potatoes and sausage” that Poe thinks he’s ever heard. After another stop at the caf machine to refill his mug, he heads to the table that Finn and Rey are sitting at. He’s starting to buzz with caffeine, but it means he’s awake enough to tell that something’s definitely happened between them, even if he can’t figure out _what_ yet. It’s not, he tells himself firmly, that they got together.

“Morning,” he says, managing what he thinks is a fairly good approximation of awake and not a mumble.

“Hey!” Finn says, smiling at him. He points at a chair halfway between the two of them, and Poe heads towards it, grateful that even if they’ve been sending other people away, he’s still welcome to join them.

Rey looks up from the datapad she’s got sitting in front of her scraped-clean plate. “Did you not sleep well?”

“I slept fine.” Poe sets down his plate and pulls the chair back with a foot before slumping carefully into it. Thankfully, he manages not to spill his caf. “I just can’t stay up as late as I want to anymore.”

Finn sets his knife and fork down on his now-empty plate. “Why did you stay up late?”

“General Organa has put me in charge of training new pilots.” Poe keeps his mug close to his chest and picks up a chunk of tuber. It looks fine, and it isn’t over-salted or over-spiced like sometimes.

Rey perks up. “Jess says it’s fun running sims for them.”

“Yeah, that’s because she likes blowing them up.” He tries a protein chunk. It’s chewy and doesn’t taste like anything. “I maintain that it’s better _not_ to blow them up, but to let them blow _themselves_ up instead.”

“But it’s easy to avoid blowing yourself up!”

Poe eyes her over the top of his caf mug. “You’re the data set that got top marks on all the agility courses, aren’t you.”

“They don’t put names on the data?” Rey taps something on her datapad, and it goes blank. “I didn’t know that.”

“Makes us less biased, the Admiral says.” Poe eats another few chunks of acceptable breakfast food. “I’m right, though? You ran the sim sets?”

“Of course I did.” The pride in Rey’s voice and posture brings a smile to Poe’s face, especially as she continues. “I’ve got at least as much experience in sims as anyone else on base who isn’t a pilot already.”

Finn’s looking between them, and Poe finally registers that he seems a little lost. Poe turns to him, and says, “Sorry, we can talk about piloting later, if you want.”

He shakes his head. “I like seeing you so happy.”

“It’s easier to be when you’re happy too,” Poe says. His brain catches up a second later, and _then_ he feels the dull burn of his cheeks flushing. He busies himself with eating, pretending not to hear Rey snickering.

“I’ve got plenty to keep myself occupied,” Finn says, his voice just a little faster and higher-pitched than usual. “And Dr. Kalonia says I’m healing well. She thinks it’s almost time that I start working on balance and walking.”

“That’s great!” Poe looks up with a smile.

“She doesn’t think it’ll be fast or easy, but I’ll get there.”

Poe nods. “I think you’ll be able to do anything you want to,” he says, and he means it.

Finn just smiles back.

“What does having a crush feel like?” Rey asks, and Poe almost chokes on air at how bright and teasing her voice is. “You’ve got a lot of experience with those, Jess says. And she kept not being sure how to explain to me.”

Poe glances at Rey, who is grinning at him, chin braced on both her hands, and then at his almost-empty caf mug. “I need more caf for this,” he announces, and slides his chair back. He stands and walks back towards the edge of the mess hall, mind whirling. He’s _definitely_ awake now.

Last night, Jess had told him that she and Rey had talked about Jess’ crush on Rey, and that Rey wasn’t sure what her feelings were. That was probably why Rey was asking him, he told himself. The grin and the timing were just coincidence. Really. He hadn’t been _that_ obvious about his crush on Finn, had he? So that even Rey was picking it up? He set his mug in the caf machine with more force than necessary. Or maybe someone had told her. That was possible. Someone could’ve asked her to place a bet on when he’d say something, there’s got to be a betting pool for that by now.

Poe swallows another steaming mouthful of caf and turns back to the table, where he can see Finn and Rey having a debate of some sort. Rey, he thinks, is winning. Or at least being more emphatic about whatever her point is. Sithspit, this was going to be an interesting conversation. He catches the tail end of something Rey’s saying as he approaches: “--such a perfect set-up!”

“You couldn’t have waited to ask until after I’d eaten?” Poe says as he sits back down.

Rey, much to Poe’s surprise, ducks her head. “I had kinda meant to.”

“Told you,” Finn says, and Poe can’t hold back his laughter at how smug he is.

“Okay, so.” Poe places his mug on the table and leans back in his chair, folding his arms. “What a crush feels like. That’s what you want to know?”

They both nod.

“For me it’s feeling warmth at the presence of another person,” Poe says, relaxing his posture a little. “It’s looking a little too long, laughing a little too easily, smiling at the simple fact of their existence. Jess says it’s more like an addiction -- you can’t go too long without interacting with whoever it is.”

Finn’s nodding, but Rey looks frustrated. “How do you _tell_ , though?” she asks. “That’s... isn’t that just like friendship?”

Poe shrugs, and takes a sip of caf. “Sort of? But more so.”

Rey’s glaring at him now. “Not helpful.”

“Hey, all I know is what it’s like for me.” He carefully avoids looking at Finn. “I dated a Quarren once -- real nice guy -- who said he could tell when he liked someone by how much calmer he was around them. Lyr thinks it’s about wanting to kiss someone. Hama wants to protect people. Most of us, though? We got to figure it out when we were twelve, maybe fifteen.” He spreads his hands. “I don’t think you’ve had that opportunity.”

“Personal attachments were discouraged,” Finn says quietly. “Identifying with your squadron was acceptable, so long as you didn’t risk the mission.” He shakes his head vigorously, and Poe’s pretty sure he’s forcing the cheerful tone, knocking himself out of the monotone, “It’s nice being able to have personal attachments. It’s just hard to tell what the differences are, sometimes.”

Poe nods. There isn’t really anything he can say to that. He grew up kissing people if he wanted to and they were okay with it, running around with five different best friends and a cohort of other people he could play with, and a giant extended family of both blood and choice.

“Friends are hard to come by when you’re all on your own.” Rey grimaces, and her short nails click against the table, a quick _ra-ta-tat_. “Especially if you don’t exactly grow up with a gang.”

“You’ve got friends now,” Poe says softly. He grins a little. “Made them all on your own, too.”

She laughs. “Doesn’t get me any closer to understanding this romance thing, though. That wasn’t a huge thing in the trade towns.”

“I don’t know how to help more than this,” Poe says. “It’s either something you get or you don’t, I think.”

Rey leans towards him, eyes fixed on his now. “Do you know people who don’t get it?”

“Um.” Poe thinks back through the people on base. He doesn’t tend to pay attention to the romantic life of people who don’t make theirs public knowledge, unless he’s interested in them, which cuts out something close to half the people on base. The full list of people he knows are or have been in relationships cuts out half again of those. The rest are mostly question marks. “Syrn, I think? And Hvir Vlee, the Gand pilot. Syrn doesn’t care, at least, and Hvir doesn’t... do most social things the way humans at least expect.”

“Okay.” Rey sits back, and types something into her datapad. “I’ll ask them.”

“Do you _want_ a romantic relationship?” Finn asks.

Poe looks at him, startled. He sees Rey freeze, too, but Finn’s sitting there as relaxed as he ever is. “No, really,” Finn says, earnest. He leans forward a little. “You don’t need to understand it to want it, do you?”

Rey relaxes by centimeters. “That is true.”

Carefully, Poe sits back in his chair and continues eating. He’s not getting in the way of this conversation; it sounds too much like a continuation of something, and even if he really wants to know what that was, it’s not something he can poke at right now.

“So, do you?”

There’s a long silence. Poe finishes his incredibly mediocre breakfast, and has drained his caf mug for what needs to be the last time; he’s buzzing with chemical energy now. Finn’s looking at Rey with incredible patience that he’s got to have practiced, though if he wanted to or if it was trained into him is a question Poe really doesn’t want to think about. Rey’s looking at the currently-blank screen of her datapad, completely still.

“I don’t know,” she finally says, and it’s almost a whisper. “I think so?”

Finn leans across the table even more, reaching out a hand, and Rey takes it. Poe looks down, biting hard on the inside of his mouth. It’s okay, he tells himself fiercely, you knew you never really had a chance, not when they’re both such children burning so bright and hard.

“Hey.”

He looks up, and Finn’s offering his other hand to him. Poe doesn’t move, just stares at the young rebel, wondering if the implications he sees in the motion are the same as what Finn means.

“I like you,” Finn says, straight at him.

Rey’s holding back laughter again. Poe’s pretty sure she could do a better job of it if she wanted to. “I like you too,” he says instead, the words falling almost flat in his mouth, nothing like the dulcet tones that Jess’ teased him about in the past.

“I also like Rey.”

Poe nods. “I know that.”

“Okay,” Finn says, and he wiggles his hand. “Should I just keep this here, or...?”

“ _Oh_ ,” Poe says, and he takes Finn’s hand, holding tight. “Okay. Yes.”

Rey leans over and shoves his shoulder gently. “I thought you were the one who knew stuff about this.”

“You two teach me new things every day,” Poe says to her, grinning. “So what about Jess?”

The bright blush that spreads across Rey’s face is just as delightful as the warmth of Finn’s hand in his. “We’ll try something, I think?”

Poe nods, grinning, and Finn’s laughing, and everything is, for this moment, right in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> The response to this fic has been amazing. I never expected for a fic that I originally thought was going to be some silly stuff about Poe and Rey racing each other was going to evolve into a fairly long meditation on relationships as a whole, and I certainly never expected it to gain such a following. Thank you, every one of you, for reading this. I appreciate even more those who left kudos, or bookmarked this! Those are symbols of your love. Those of you who left comments? You have my deepest affection, and I am grateful for all your words, no matter how short they may have been.
> 
> I do intend to keep writing in this 'verse. The next fic I'll be writing in this world will have plot other than relationships! Won't it be exciting? My hope is to have that one start within the week, but it'll depend on how tricky the plot threads are to weave into a whole I feel comfortable beginning to write.
> 
> I hope I'll see some of your names again as I continue writing Star Wars fic, but whether or not I do -- thank you again for reading. I appreciate it quite a lot.


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